A reason for Trek inferiority...

[Spanky The Dolphin]

I said that EAS estimated 1800 ships is a minimum number, Alyeska. The actual number might be closer to 2000-2500.

And how did the Feds win the Dominion War? Easy, the same way they always do: deus-ex-machina.

[TheDarkling]

Third how do you get all 30k Ships through the Worm-Hole? How to you resupply them?

I dont get this, what are you refering to? we know the Dominon had 30,000 ships (this includes Breen and Cardy aswell) so they didnt have to get them all past the wormhole, we also know that Dominion shipyards were working faster than the Alliance.

[Alyeska]

I said that EAS estimated 1800 ships is a minimum number, Alyeska. The actual number might be closer to 2000-2500.

And how did the Feds win the Dominion War? Easy, the same way they always do: deus-ex-machina.

Incorrect. Prior to the Cardassians changing sides in the final battle, the Alliance expected to win. After the Cardassians changed sides, they expected to win with nothing less then 40% cauasalties.

The EAS number is an incredibly low number bassed on a faulty assumption from Sacrafice Angles. Elements of three fleets were going to be combined, but they had to rush the attack with only 2 fleets.

Incidently, the Federation uses its standard ships for all duties. We have seen Miranda's in use as cargo ships, Galaxy class ships for medical purposes, Nebula's for scientific, and Excelsiors working under courier duty. We have seen no purpose use cargo ships or transports. If the TMs are taken at any credit value, the Galaxy and Nebula class ships can be configured for troop transport.

[Alyeska]

Question... How could the Federation have won the Dominion war with only 1,800 capital ships? The Dominion outnumbered the Klingons 20-1, and that was with the Klingons down to 1,500 ships after over a year and a half of fighting. The Dominion had 30,000 ships for crying out loud, and we saw in almost every battle the Federation had its ass handed to them.

Simple Tecnobabble, how else do they win?

Oh and Alyeska only a fool or a madman rushs all of his ships away from his planets without leave a force behind to defend them, By your Reasoning every single Axis Trooper should have been within six miles of the Front at all times

Third how do you get all 30k Ships through the Worm-Hole? How to you resupply them? How do you track them keep up with them? How many fights ended in draws and Retreats? And somthing that can't happen today but how many ships ran away to re-charge thier ships after being hit?
Today if you shoot a man he does not come back, You hit his tank and he either dies or does not but he can't run away for two mintues and have repair his tank back to 100% can he?

But can't they in ST?

Think about it.

What the hell are you talking about? And FYI those 30K ships are towards the END of the war, those are not the begining numbers. They built SOME ships, and supported them from shipyards. Do you recall the first Federation offensive action was a joint strike with a Klingon force that destroyed a Dominion shipyard? Do you remember how Worf and Martok used a solar flare to destroy another shipyard?

[Spanky The Dolphin]

Okay, fine, Alyeska. Then I'll go with the number that I can't remember where I heard it: 5000-7000 cap ships.

[Alyeska]

Okay, fine, Alyeska. Then I'll go with the number that I can't remember where I heard it: 5000-7000 cap ships.

Course 12,000 ships against 4.8 million doesn't make much difference.

[Mr Bean]

What the hell are you talking about? And FYI those 30K ships are towards the END of the war, those are not the begining numbers. They built SOME ships, and supported them from shipyards. Do you recall the first Federation offensive action was a joint strike with a Klingon force that destroyed a Dominion shipyard? Do you remember how Worf and Martok used a solar flare to destroy another shipyard?

Why pray tell if they could build 10k-20k ships so fast and they are clones and thus easy to make why would they NOT have a much larger standing Navy? And furthermore if they are all alone by themsleves now and they could build thousands of ships so fast why have they not taken two years off(Its been at least that long) and come back with 90k Ships?


And Resupply? You don't know what Resupply means...

(said extremly high pitched voice)
I'm every so sorry but I think your under the impression that food, fuel, supplys such as weaponry, replacment parts and whatever else is needed to keep a ship running was ferried to every ship after being built by a hundred faries down in the tree-hollow then ferried by Magical Gnomes instalty through space to whatever ship they are needed on then they all sit down for Tea and Dance around the Camp-fire!
(end high voice)

Have a better idea what Resupply means and why you can't send all your ships at once?

[His Divine Shadow]

A Sector Group can be expected to contain at least 2,400 ships, 24 of which are Star Destroyers, and another 1,600 combat starships. Thousands of Sector Groups are at the Emperor's command as he seeks to bring the galaxy firmly under his control."
[ISB, Ch. 8]

You know, since the Empire has 25k ISD's and thats a minimum, we can figure out a lowend figure for the fleet.

Simple really, take 25000 / 24 and we see that the Empire must have 1041 sectors minimum, if each sector has that fleet, it would yield 2.4 million ships, minimum.

Ofcourse the ISB also says something about the fleet not being big enough and constantly being re-inforced or something.

[Darth Garden Gnome]

[quote="Mr Bean"]then ferried by Magical Gnomes instalty through space to whatever ship they are needed on then they all sit down for Tea and Dance around the Camp-fire!
(end high voice)[quote]

Hey I resent that! Gnomes helping the Dominion sheesh.....

[Alyeska]

Why pray tell if they could build 10k-20k ships so fast and they are clones and thus easy to make why would they NOT have a much larger standing Navy? And furthermore if they are all alone by themsleves now and they could build thousands of ships so fast why have they not taken two years off(Its been at least that long) and come back with 90k Ships?

WTF are you talking about? Do you have ANY proof that the ships mentioned were built? What we know is that the Klingons had 1,500 ships and were outnumbered 20-1 by the enemy (Breen, Cardassians, Dominion combined).

[Mr Bean]

You said those numbers where towards the end of the war and implied that they had built that maybe by then, that or they had a ton of ships to begin with, I took it one way if you ment it the other then I'm sorry try and be more clear second I saw you ignored what I posted about Resupply all them ships...

[Typhonis 1]

The reason Trek is inferior is because Mark Jeffries is gone from Trek.He was the design engineer for the origional series and came up with those sensible designs

[Doomriser]

The TOS designs weren't 'sensible.' They were just less-retarded.

[SPOOFE]

Well, more basic, anyway. Although I've always said that the original Connie design looked like someone starting tripping out on LSD (hey, it WAS the '60s) and started playing with Tinker Toys...

[Jadeite]

Although I've always said that the original Connie design looked like someone starting tripping out on LSD (hey, it WAS the '60s) and started playing with Tinker Toys...

prob not that bad, just REALLY low budget, couldnt afford a better plastic model i bet.

[beyond hope]

Question... How could the Federation have won the Dominion war with only 1,800 capital ships? The Dominion outnumbered the Klingons 20-1, and that was with the Klingons down to 1,500 ships after over a year and a half of fighting.

Answer: how many of the Dominion ships were fighters? We know Star Trek counts them as "ships." A 20-to-1 advantage is less impressive if 18 of those 20 ships are Jem'Hadar attack fighters. Plus, remember that smaller ships tend to be lost faster than larger ones in combat... the Klingons have a lot of small bird-of-prey ships in their fleet.

[Master of Ossus]

Question... How could the Federation have won the Dominion war with only 1,800 capital ships? The Dominion outnumbered the Klingons 20-1, and that was with the Klingons down to 1,500 ships after over a year and a half of fighting.

Answer: how many of the Dominion ships were fighters? We know Star Trek counts them as "ships." A 20-to-1 advantage is less impressive if 18 of those 20 ships are Jem'Hadar attack fighters. Plus, remember that smaller ships tend to be lost faster than larger ones in combat... the Klingons have a lot of small bird-of-prey ships in their fleet.

Also, Cardassian ships appeared to be inferior, and the Breen ships appeared effective only as energy-drainers from Federation and Romulan ships. Thus, most of the Dominion forces would have been unable to engage in significant combat against the Klingons on equal ground, as the majority of them were of significantly lower quality than those of the Klingon Empire.

[Howedar]

That is heavily debateable. ST has slower FTL, but theirs is not affected by Interdictors.

I'm tired of hearing you spout this, Alyeska. The US has radar, and it has countermeasures to radar. Does the fact that these countermeasures exist make radar inferior to naked-eye target detection?

The presence of a countermeasure does not detract from the superiority of a system, especially when the countermeasure is held only by the user of said system.

[Lord of the Farce]

I'm tired of hearing you spout this, Alyeska. The US has radar, and it has countermeasures to radar. Does the fact that these countermeasures exist make radar inferior to naked-eye target detection?

The presence of a countermeasure does not detract from the superiority of a system, especially when the countermeasure is held only by the user of said system.

And if the Interdictor's gravity wells working on reverse can act like that inverse gravitron beam or what not, that could potentially prevent ST ships from going FTL while not hampering the SW ship's own ability to do so.

[Chris OFarrell]

Well I've been looking at figures on ships and such in ST for a while and this is more or less a relevent place to post them...

(Note this isn't commenting on SW ships or ship counts or such, just ST, I'll possibly comment on SW latter but it looks like most people have gone over the relevent numbers already).

WARNING, LONG POST!

A few asasumptions.

The UFP does NOT count fighters or support craft as part of a fleet. Firstly, it was never said by any character that it was so. Someone a while back, one of the more major posters on here/sb/asvs IIRC claimed that in FTB/SOA Sisko said it, but it was never said. Support craft such as shuttles ALL carry the registry of their mothership. Shuttles off the E-D or VOY for example all carry 'NCC-1701-D" or "NCC-74656". They do NOT carry their own registration number and as such are not clasified as starships and counted as ships. The smallest craft to carry its own registry number is the Danube class Runabout. They do not appear to be a widely produced craft. DS9 only has three and its a starbase. No starship I have seen (during its production life) including the E-D, Voyager or the E-E have ever had one on board.

The idea of counting fighters as ships I think comes from the Jem'Hadar fighters. People see these and instantly declare that ST counts fighters as capital ships. Not so. The Jem'hadar fighter is a corvette sized ship, betwen 100 and 150 meters long and carries a crew of around 50 people. It does not fall anywhere near the clasification of a fighter as Earth or the UFP defines it. The first use of the term was in TDIC, I guess its a Romulan term for it that just caught on OR its the class name the Dominion gave it and it simply kept.

To put it bluntly, fighters are never said to be counted as ships. All evidence points to them NOT being counted from navel tradition to precidents in Trek such as shuttle craft (which fighters would realy fall under)



Now. Onto number crunching.

1. The first and clearest bit of evidence is from Rick Strenbench (quite sure it was either him or Berman himself, have to check). He is the person who basicly answered questions from fans about Treknology and other things during DS9 and Voyager on paramounts ST NG. He also designed basicly all of the ships used in ST. He said that at the start of the Dominion War, the UFP had between 8 and 12 thousand combat ready STARSHIPS. Essentialy, I am going to assume this is right and see how other evidence fits in.

2. Favour the Bold / Sacrifice of angles. This was essentialy following an attack on DS9 Sisko came up with. This is what he is proposing when he delivers his proposal to the brass:

Sisko:
By putting together a task force comprised of elements from the Second, Fifth and Ninth fleets, I believe that we can take back Deep Space Nine -- the most important piece of real estate in the quadrant.

Admiral 1:
Your plan, Captain Sisko, is not without merit. However, I remain skeptical. The Dominion will undoubtedly send a large fleet to stop you.

Sisko:
Which will divert their forces and slow their advance into Federation territory.

Ross:
As well as leave their flank vulnerable.

Sisko:
Giving us a chance to go on the offensive, for a change.

Admiral 2:
There's one thing that still concerns me...

Sisko:
What's that, Admiral?

Admiral 2:
Earth. You've left it a very tempting target.

Ross:
Earth would still be defended by the Third Fleet.

From this, what do we know?

1. The fleet Sisko was putting together only was comprised of ELEMENTS of fleets, they were not fleets themselves, just parts of them. We can assume they were not the majority power of those fleets, elements implies minority fractions of them (not to mention it would make more sense to bring the whole fleets if your bringing enough to make the rest combat inefffective)

2. Earth still had at least another fleet guarding it. And its interesting to note it was ONLY Earth that was left vunurable to the UFP. None of the Admirals came in worrying that it would leave the UFP at large vunurable, just the Sol system. Earth is actualy relativly close to the Cardasian boarder in terms of galactic distance, its possible that the operation would involve moving enough ships out that the lines protecting Earth would be easily penetrated by a fast attack fleet. Further, Ross and Sisko are clear that if the Dominion DID pull a heep of ships off the line to intercept Siskos fleet that other Starfleet fleets would be able to take advantage of the situation and go on the offensive. So its clear that the Federation was in no way putting anyting like their entire fleet to the attack. We know the detachments from the 9th fleet had not arrived yet. If we assume each fleet contributed 300 ships, the total would have been around 1000. 1/8th or 1/12th of your entire fleet is a rather significant number, especialy given the strategic situation with warp driven craft over thousands of cubic light years.

3. DS9 A Time to Stand. The 7th fleet is almost destroyed totaly in this episode. That is, only Fourteen out of a hundred and twelve starships made it back to the Federation lines. While its clearly a stagering defeat, I don't think its so much for it in terms of total numbers as in the number of ships that survived. Only EIGHT PERCENT of the fleet that started out came back. Thats a stagering loss. Heck the fleet at the end of season 5 had many more ships then that IIRC. From O'Briens confident statement about them being able to stop the Dominion, I guess they were the best of the fleet, the elite wing or whatever with the best ships.

4. DS9 "When it Rains", "Tacking into the Wind". This is the biggest proof of Rick S's numbers onscreen. Its stated at least twice (once by the Romulan commander and once by Martok) that 1500 Klingon ships (which I take to be the current best fleet the KDF can field) would be outnumbered 20 to 1 by the Jem'hadar, Cardasians and Breen. The size of the KDF fleet is understandable. They have been in a war since season 4 of DS9 against the Cardasians, against the Federation for a time and against the Dominion since that war started. So in essence, they have had a good 3-4 years of war. At the end of this, the female shapeshifter decides to pull back the Dominion forces to form a new defence line deeper in Cardasian space. Extracts follow (quite a few of them):

FEMALE SHAPE-SHIFTER
I'm ordering a strategic retreat
of our forces to Cardassian space.


She moves to a wall map and traces a line with her
finger.

FEMALE SHAPE-SHIFTER
We will establish a new defense
perimeter along this line. With
less territory to defend, we can
concentrate our forces and hold
off any attack -- if the enemy
attacks at all.

WEYOUN
(catching on)
The Federation is by its very
nature timid. When they see we've
pulled back, their first impulse
will be to leave us alone.

BROCA
What about the Klingons and the
Romulans?

Everyone turns and looks at him -- the most junior
man in the room should keep his mouth shut at this
point. He tries to backtrack.

BROCA
I meant no disrespect... I was
simply asking --

WEYOUN
Without the Federation, the
others are no threat to us.

FEMALE SHAPE-SHIFTER
Once we've established the new
perimeter, we'll redouble our
shipbuilding efforts and increase
production of Jem'Hadar troops.
(beat)
Retreat may extend the war by
several years, but in the end, we
will emerge stronger, and in a
far better position to take the
Alpha Quadrant once and for all.

.......................................................

ROSS
-- according to our intelligence
reports, the Dominion has
completely withdrawn from
Klingon, Federation and Romulan
space. They seem to be forming a
new defense perimeter within
Cardassian territory.

VELAL
They must know we've developed a
countermeasure against the Breen
weapon.

SISKO
That would be my guess.

MARTOK
There are advantages to falling
back... they shorten their own
supply lines while forcing us to
lengthen ours.

ROSS
And with a smaller perimeter to
defend, they'll be less
vulnerable to hit and run
attacks. It would take a major
offensive to break through their
lines.

VELAL
At a cost of thousands of ships.
The wiser course would be to
simply contain them within their
perimeter.

SISKO
That's what they're hoping we'll
do -- so they'll have time to
rebuild their forces.


MARTOK
He's right. We have them on the
defensive -- we should attack
with everything we've got.

Ross hesitates.

ROSS
Trying to break through that line
will be a very ugly, very bloody
job...

SISKO
If we do nothing, the Dominion
could sit behind that perimeter
for the next five years rearming
themselves. And when they're
ready to come out... God help us
all.

MARTOK
The Klingon Empire votes to hit
them now -- before they have time
to recover.


A beat as Ross takes a deep breath.

ROSS
Considering the alternative...
I'm afraid I have to concur.

All eyes turn to Velal, who takes a moment to look
over the map, then reluctantly nods agreement.

VELAL
Very well.

SISKO
Then it's settled... we attack.

They would (collectivly) lose 'Thousands of ships' just breaking through the defence perimiter and while clearly a concern, its not going to knock them out of the war. While many people make mention of it being a very bloody operation with massive casulaties, it was always presented as being a mission they were expecting to win. And very clearly, that without the Federation fleets, the Romulans and Klingons could not hope to win against the Dominion. We have established the Klingons have only 1500 ships at this point. Assuming numerical parity (not an unreasnoable assumption given the power Dominion ships have) the Federation and Romulans between them have to have at least 30,000 ships. That is, 1500 * 20 / 2. Thats somewhat too high though. And the only Romulan ship of the line is the Warbird which there appear to be far fewer of then UFP ships. We would assume a rough equity between the UFP and Romulans given that hte Romulans have always wanted to destroy the UFP but have been held back by the Federation being able to stand up to them.

And note that all of this is after two years of all out WAR. It appears the Federation can replace its loses quite effectivly once on a war footing.

5. Voyager: Endgame. Its only a relativly minor point. But the fleet in Endgame was 18 ships. Of the ships, only a few were older models. IIRC there were 2 Mirindas and 2 Excelsors and thats it. There were five Galaxy class ships, several Akiras, Nebulas, Defiants and a Prometheus (non seperating subtype) e.t.c. Just as a point, it appears that the Federation is indeed rebuilding its fleet, with newer ships to replace the older ships.

So in conclusion, I would say there is very good support for a fleet of between 8 and 12 thousand starships in the UFP at nominal levels, post Dominion war very possibly of new model ships.

Which still utterly pails in comparasion to the kind of logistics the Empire can call upon

[/quote]

[TheDarkling]

No starship I have seen (during its production life) including the E-D

I just wanted to say that we have seen Runabouts durring the run of TNG (Season 6 I believe) that were used by the crew to go back and forth.

Im trying to remember an exact instance ermm the episode when they find the Romulan ship and the fed ship linked by an energy beam - times slowed down.

TimeScape - While Riker and the Enterprise respond to a Romulan ship's distress call, Picard, Troi, Geordi, and Data are traveling in a long-range shuttlecraft known as a Runabout..

Thats from ST.com.

Its only a minor nitpick but I just thought I wuold point it out.

[CNS Sarajevo]

I thought about this once for all scifi. Then, from strongest to weakest, it should rank something like

Star Wars (tens of thousands of years old)
Warhammer 40K (duh)
Dune (the year was about 10,100)
Battlestar Galactica ("As we enter the 7th millennium of time...")
Star Trek
Babylon 5

Farscape and Lexx are unknowns. I don't remember how old the 5th Imperium was.

[Cpt_Frank]

Naah I dunno Warhammer 40k should be equal to SW they have slower standard FTL drives but really nasty weaponry.
And for the sake of fairness, there are also many Sci-Fi civilisations which are stronger than SW
(the culture, the Xeele or what they're spelled).

Otherwise, I agree.

[Stravo]

just the Sol system. Earth is actualy relativly close to the Cardasian boarder in terms of galactic distance, its possible that the operation would involve moving enough ships out that the lines protecting Earth would be easily penetrated by a fast attack fleet.

What canon source states this fact? DS9 is considered to be on the fringes of Federation space. (Bashir wanting to practice "frontier medicine") Every time Sisko goes to earth he is gone for days. SO, when the Breen attack earth can you explain to me why this massive 30,000 ship fleet being feilded by the allies can't stop a Breen attack force that must chug along for DAYS to get to Earth, no fleet is there at earth to stop them because they BOMB SF HQ, then are only destroyed ENROUTE BACK TO THE DOMINION.

This does seem to indicate that:
A) that Earth has a no permanent fleet elemet stationed there because they did not intercept a fleet that anyone could see coming for DAYS. AND the Breen were able to do initiate and complete and orbital bombardment then levae, finally destroyed while making their way back home.

B) The Federation defensive lines must be incredibly thin if a Breen task force can breech the lines and head for earth, warping for DAYS and no fleet elements are in interception range.

C)The only target worth striking is Earth and yet no major defenses around earth despite the fact that they have now been at war for over two years...

Another small detail: If the Federation fleet is truly as large as you claim, why id Bashir so upset that the seventh fleet was decimated?? He screams at Sisko "We can't take these kind of losses and expect to win this." I don't think that speaks well to the Federation's ability to replace lost ships (BOBW states that it will take a YEAR to replace the losses at Wolf 359, so how are they going to replace the losses of HUNDREDS of starships in a shorter time frame??) nor its size...If they had 15,000 ships, losing 100 won't make you rant that you might lose this war.

Another minor point...if there is only a SINGLE institution that graduates your officers, HOW can you staff a 15,000 ship fleet. That graduating class must number in the tens of thousands.

[BioDroid]

Another small detail: If the Federation fleet is truly as large as you claim, why id Bashir so upset that the seventh fleet was decimated?? He screams at Sisko "We can't take these kind of losses and expect to win this." I don't think that speaks well to the Federation's ability to replace lost ships

Well, let's remember that there's more to replacing fighting ability than just replacing the ships. There's also the need of replacing the crews as well, which no matter what your industrial capacity may (or may not) be, is far more difficult to replace du to the training requirements.

Hell, even if you do manage to scrape together a crew to man the ship, they'll most likely wind up being a group of inexperienced cadets who'll only get their ship destroyed again in the first major battle they're thrusted in to.