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[Captain Kruger]

The Enterprise-E is a warship. It clearly is armed as well as SF can practically make it.

Well, I don't know if I would go that far. The Sovereign-class is still supposedly classified as an explorer ship, although a somewhat better armed one that the oversized luxury liner that was the Galaxy-class. I'm not so sure Starfleet would have absolutely armed her to the teeth. For a pure warship, see the Akira or the Prometheus, both of which are smaller than the Sovereign and still have more firepower (provided you count non-canon information, of course).

Wait 'til you see the movie, Mike. There was a reason for it.

Yes, but as MoO says, it sounds like a stupid reason.

I was under the impression that Shinzon wanted to take out the two warbirds as quickly as possible so he could go back to playing with the E-E. By partially dropping the cloak, he gave them a target to make an attack run at so that he could get the much more maneuverable warbirds to come in close and fall victim to his superior firepower at point blank range.

I would agree that the tactic would have been stupid had it seriously put the Scimitar in jeopardy. But the way she was shrugging off that warbird's blows, the risk might have been worth the gain of taking his number of opponents from three down to one. And if he hadn't done it, all three ships might have been harrassing him a lot longer.

Thats interesting to see that the Scimitar had so many torpedo tubes. However has anyone considered that these might be INFERIOR tubes them what the Sovereign class has? The Akira has 15 torpedo launchers, but can only fire at max three from any one launcher. The Scimitar might have a whole shitload of single or double fire launchers. That would not compare quite so well with a ship that has quad and even 6 time fire launchers. It would take 3 double launchers to equal a single 6 time launcher on the Sovereign class. The Sovereign has 6 such torpedo launchers. That could be 18 of the Scimitar's launchers. Then you have to factor in the Quantum torpedo launcher.

From all indications, the Scimitar does outgun the Sovereign class to a fair degree, however just because it seems to have massive numbers of weapons, the numbers themselves can be decieving.

You're probably right about them being smaller tubes; a friend of mine brought up that very point when we saw the movie again.

By the way, after my second viewing it seems I underguessed the E-E's firepower a bit. It looked to me like she had 2 forward and 4 aft photon tubes with 1 forward and 1 aft quantum. That's a grand total of 8 high volume torpedo tubes...not bad at all.

The Scimitar is a bigger ship and can afford to have the spaced used by all the extra mechanisms needed for 27 torpedo tubes. Frankly, the Scimitar deserves to win against a Soveriegn-class in a straight-up fight.

Agreed.

The Enterprise having so many tubes would either need to be a bigger ship (in which case you're not helping the firepower/volume ratio at all) or would have much less space with which to house torpedos. Plus, in an extended battle, more tubes would mean you'd run through torpedos more quickly, giving you a shorter time during which you're fully effective.

Considering that the Enterprise survived past the expenditure of all it's torpedos, it would not have mattered if it had more tubes. The damage done by the torpedo complement would still have been the same (if not less, since the tubes would take up more space), and they'd still be facing 70% shields with only their phasers.

There have been many occasions throughout ST where a large volley of weapons hit a ship and did a great deal of internal damage without dropping the shields completely. With that in mind, 20 torpedoes delivered over the space of a few minutes might not do as much damage as 20 torpedoes hitting you in one volley. However, as Alyeska said, the Scimitar's tubes probably weren't as high volume anyway, so the torpedo volume wouldn't have been quite that drastically different between the two ships.

[Captain Kruger]

Plasma torpedoes are when the ship dumps it's drive plasma into a magnetic field or something and fires it at a stationary target, or something on that order. It taxes their power systems pretty heavily.

The plasma torp's heyday was in the 23rd century, back when photon tubes were only firing about two rounds per tube before reloading. The plasma is a one-shot-then-reload deal, and it's not a quick reload either. With the current UFP photon tubes firing 5 to 10 rounds at a time, the plasma may simply not pack the comparative punch it used to.

I could see their torps being weaker, afterall this is their first generation of Photons torps, prior to that they used plasma torps.

D'deridex-class warbirds were said to have photon torpedoes several times during TNG, without a single reference to plasma torpedoes. Given that the Romulans were silent for 50 years prior to TNG Season 1, who knows how long they might have been producing photons?

[Alyeska]

By the way, after my second viewing it seems I underguessed the E-E's firepower a bit. It looked to me like she had 2 forward and 4 aft photon tubes with 1 forward and 1 aft quantum. That's a grand total of 8 high volume torpedo tubes...not bad at all.

Where might this aft Quantum launcher be? I was always under the impression that the aft area got more photon launchers then the front because the front has the quantum turret.

[Captain Kruger]

Where might this aft Quantum launcher be? I was always under the impression that the aft area got more photon launchers then the front because the front has the quantum turret.

In the first ship battle sequence in Insurrection, we see quantums popping out of the E-E's aft at her pursuers. They didn't use it in Nemesis, probably because they wanted to save the quantums for the sure shots rather than risk firing them into dead space.

Even with an aft quantum tube, having twice as many photons in the rear might still be a good balancing act considering the lack of heavy phaser firepower back there.

[Shinova]

Where might this aft Quantum launcher be? I was always under the impression that the aft area got more photon launchers then the front because the front has the quantum turret.

In the first ship battle sequence in Insurrection, we see quantums popping out of the E-E's aft at her pursuers. They didn't use it in Nemesis, probably because they wanted to save the quantums for the sure shots rather than risk firing them into dead space.

Even with an aft quantum tube, having twice as many photons in the rear might still be a good balancing act considering the lack of heavy phaser firepower back there.

Idon't recall E-E firing any quantums in Insurrection.

[Captain Kruger]

I don't recall E-E firing any quantums in Insurrection.

It's in the very first outside shot of the space battle. E-E pops off one shot a piece at the two Son'a ships. They looked blue-white to me, not red.

[Alyeska]

I don't recall E-E firing any quantums in Insurrection.

It's in the very first outside shot of the space battle. E-E pops off one shot a piece at the two Son'a ships. They looked blue-white to me, not red.

They were the standard red/orange. The Sona ships fired blue torpedoes at the E-E but the E-E fired 2 red/orange torpedoes from the same location as the launcher just above the shuttlebay in Nemesis.

[Captain Kruger]

They were the standard red/orange. The Sona ships fired blue torpedoes at the E-E but the E-E fired 2 red/orange torpedoes from the same location as the launcher just above the shuttlebay in Nemesis.

Hmm...I guess I need to see the movie again. Nah, on second thought, I'll take your word for it. That was the second-shittiest Trek movie behind Final Frontier.