Are fixed defenses superior to ships in Star Trek?

[spaceviking]

Star Trek battles have mainly been focused on ship to ship fights; however, I wonder are fixed defenses actually of greater importance then they initially appear?

Example 1) First Battle of Chin'toka: In this battle the Cardassians (normally the Dominion B-squad) are able to construct orbital defense platforms that devastate the Federation and allied forces. It is worth noting that the Cardassian are normally considered to be technologically inferior to the major Apla and beta quadrant powers.

The Allies did win this battle, but mainly by finding a flaw in the defense platforms. Not by overpowering these defenses.

Example 2) DS9 (First Battle of Deep Space 9): An upgraded DS9 is able to hold off a Klingon attack (of over 50 vessels) while inflicting heavy losses. While Deep Space Nine was upgraded, the upgrades appear to be mainly performed by existing maintenance personal. I do not recall the station receiving a great deal of men and material from Starfleet prior to the battle.

Speculation: After the Second battle of Chin'toka and the introduction of the Breen energy dampening weapon Romulan and Federation ships are withdrawn and Klingon ships are left fighting on their own. Despite massively outnumbering the remaining Klingon ships the Dominion does not manage to push deep enough into Allied territory to win the war. I speculate that the reason why the Dominion is not able to win the war durring this time frame is that the Federation and their allies must have significant non-ships defenses in their systems.

[Prometheus Unbound]

So you're suggesting that the Federation and Romulans had un-manned defense batteries around the major strong-holds and/or that Starbases are heavily fortified, especially in a time of war?

I mean, we know at least Betazed had it - albeit old and non-effective. Presumably something defeated the Breen assault on Earth - it wasn't ships - the local fleet was on a training exercise somewhere else... TMP said earth had "orbital defenses" (which the cloud disabled).

...

What's your point? That in your opinion the Federation (and Romulans) have the ability to make weapons go pew when there's no one physically at the helm? Or that the "most important piece of real-estate" in the Federation (DS9) has weapons and powerful shields?

That an installation which doesn't need to waste time / crew/ power on warp drive can sit there with massive shields and weapon emplacements can fight off a medium sized fleet using the very weapons, shields and power designed specifically to fight off a medium sized fleet?

Well... yeah.

That's... kind of what... they do?

[spaceviking]

My point is that these defenses seem to play a major part in Star Trek wars despite receiving little attention. I don't know if they are manned or unmanned, but they appear to be the greatest bang for buck in the Star Trek universe.

[SCRawl]

My point is that these defenses seem to play a major part in Star Trek wars despite receiving little attention. I don't know if they are manned or unmanned, but they appear to be the greatest bang for buck in the Star Trek universe.

As previously mentioned...um, yeah. A stationary platform can devote much more of its volume to defensive and offensive capabilities, but this comes at the cost of mobility. And they receive little attention because, well, that's all they can do. The inability to locomote reduces a platform to near irrelevancy, becoming important only when attacked. A land mine, for example, is extremely effective for its cost, but if no one steps on it the thing is useless (except for its deterrent effect), and not terribly interesting.

This really isn't something that should be all that surprising.

[Grumman]

Example 1) First Battle of Chin'toka: In this battle the Cardassians (normally the Dominion B-squad) are able to construct orbital defense platforms that devastate the Federation and allied forces. It is worth noting that the Cardassian are normally considered to be technologically inferior to the major Apla and beta quadrant powers.
...
Example 2) DS9 (First Battle of Deep Space 9): An upgraded DS9 is able to hold off a Klingon attack (of over 50 vessels) while inflicting heavy losses. While Deep Space Nine was upgraded, the upgrades appear to be mainly performed by existing maintenance personal. I do not recall the station receiving a great deal of men and material from Starfleet prior to the battle.

Is it a coincidence that both these examples are Cardassian platforms?

[Baffalo]

Is it a coincidence that both these examples are Cardassian platforms?

Probably not, though considering Tarak Nor was actually a mining instillation, that kind of power would normally be running all the time to power industrial equipment rather than military hardware. While I'm not saying industrial lasers require the same energy as a phaser array, torpedoes wouldn't really need that much power just to launch, so torpedoes would make an excellent weapon to mount in this case. As to the defense platforms around Cardassia, they were built solely to be military platforms, and so they would have reactors built to provide lots of power and, I imagine, large capacitors to store enough power that they could fire heavier shots at first and then fall back on regular fire from the reactor.

[spaceviking]

They were all powered by a distant power generator somehow.

[Baffalo]

... which makes no sense. At all.

The problem with such a solution is that it's obvious they were trying to fit a square peg into a round hole... they needed a way for our heroes to succeed without having to brute force punch their way through. However, making the entire defense grid subject to a single source of power, without backups, is fundamentally stupid and makes me question if the Cardies even had a remote clue on how to defend themselves.

[Metahive]

It was a recently installed system, so who knows, that particular setup might have been a mere stopgap solution until they could fit each satellite with its own power source.

[TheHammer]

I've got to wonder where the orbital defense platforms were in ST First contact during the borg attack. Given the damage done by the fleet of the size seen on screen, I'd speculate that an orbiting station equiped in a similar maner to DS9 would likely stand a decent chance of defeating a borg cube on its own.

[Darmalus]

There was supposed to be some sort of Mars Defense Line or array or something that the Borg trashed on it's way to Earth. Maybe there wasn't any in Earth orbit because.. uh, NIMBY?

[Anguirus]

Hmm, Star Trek: Armada seems to have gotten something right in this regard.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Hmm, Star Trek: Armada seems to have gotten something right in this regard.

How so? For those of us who haven't played/can't remember that game.

[Sea Skimmer]

... which makes no sense. At all.

The problem with such a solution is that it's obvious they were trying to fit a square peg into a round hole... they needed a way for our heroes to succeed without having to brute force punch their way through. However, making the entire defense grid subject to a single source of power, without backups, is fundamentally stupid and makes me question if the Cardies even had a remote clue on how to defend themselves.

The US built some rather extensive systems of multiple coastal artillery batteries which were all dependent on a single generator building; course this was being done just about 100 years ago when systems engineering was a very vague concept. The problem was never fully mitigated by adding second generator buildings either due to penny pinching.

Given the heavy shielding on the Cardassian power source it may not have been that bad an idea, as several dispersed but much more weakly protected power sources are not necessarily going to be any harder for an enemy to knock out. Being able to build energy shields throws a big monkey wrench in traditional concepts of survivability.

[Batman]

I have some doubts about the size of the monkey wrench though. Given that the AQ powers undeniably did manage to knock out the shielding on the power satellite it can't have been all that awesome compared to shielding they could have given to multiple power sources. If I recall the episode correctly it's not like it took every single ship in the fleet concentrating fire on the power satellite.

[Sea Skimmer]

You don't recall right. The attacking ships didn't knock it out and failed when they tried, the Defiant used technobabble to give the rock a federation warp signature causing the Cardassian defense platforms engage the rock and destroy it themselves. The 'regenerative shields' on the platforms and the rock were too hard to crack. Once unpowered the federation ect... ships blew up all the defense platforms. One might BTW question why sublight ships have warp signatures, I guess its something the warp core or warp nacelles always give off. All and all the system was clearly very powerful, those platforms were puny compared to the ships they were tearing up and even the power asteroid moon thing wasn't overwhelming in size.

If the Cardassians had better fire control software this couldn't have happened. I don't see any how multiple power satellites could have been better shielded without just spending additional total resources to do so. The same number of shield generators spread over more targets are going to give worse protection unless technobabble concern how the shields works causes diminishing returns to apply to attempts to heavily shield objects. That could be true, but it'd be very purely speculation, and of course, contrary to the known fact that the Cardassians used one rock for power.

Another good question, just thinking... is how on earth does the power generator wirelessly beam power to the platforms when both are shielded? That might be some kind of shielding frequency gap exploit kind of thing the Federation could have exploited given more time to study.

Edit nice found the battle clip through someone added some stupid music, they attacked the rock with a bunch of ships and it looks like when the Cardassian platforms fired they shot right through the shields (no shield effect shown anyway) and instantly blow up the facilities. Maybe this was a bunch of shielding frequency gap stuff at work to allow for power that would be a vulnerability in a future battle.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_sAwZpWGHs

[Stofsk]

One possible explanation for the lack of fire control to prevent what happened is that the defence platforms were being rushed into operation due to the impending invasion, and someone somewhere made an error.

[Baffalo]

One possible explanation for the lack of fire control to prevent what happened is that the defence platforms were being rushed into operation due to the impending invasion, and someone somewhere made an error.

That would certainly explain the lack of redundancy and the way they were tricked into firing on their own platform, though I wonder if it would've made more sense to have a command center inside the asteroid to monitor the defenses and keep an eye on the system. They might have for all we know but the system was responding faster than they could fix the situation.

[Uraniun235]

It might be that the omission of a powerplant enabled the weapon platforms to be small enough as to make their shielding especially difficult to penetrate.

[Anguirus]

Hmm, Star Trek: Armada seems to have gotten something right in this regard.

How so? For those of us who haven't played/can't remember that game.

Starbases and defense platforms were great bang for your buck.

[Coalition]

The problem with such a solution is that it's obvious they were trying to fit a square peg into a round hole... they needed a way for our heroes to succeed without having to brute force punch their way through. However, making the entire defense grid subject to a single source of power, without backups, is fundamentally stupid and makes me question if the Cardies even had a remote clue on how to defend themselves.

I can see one part where it is useful. If one normal platform is having its shields pounded down, the other platforms cannot lend their shields/power to assist it, only open fire on the ships that are shooting at the first. Similar to a large ship engaging several smaller ships, damaging/destroying one then retreating to restore its shields. Platforms that have no line of sight to the enemies cannot aid in any manner, and their power supply is effectively being wasted.

A central power generator though, can shift power to the platforms that are under attack, and reduce power to the platforms that are not being engaged/no line of sight. It provides a flexible defense by 'moving' the power to the platforms under attack, and diverting it from the platforms that are not. As weapon platforms are destroyed, the system stays almost as dangerous, as the fewer platforms can operate at full power for much longer periods of times. Also, fewer platforms means the operators can have an easier time controlling them; i.e. controlling a few dozen instead of a few hundred is easier.

If the main reactor of the satellites is much more expensive than the power receiver, then the platforms will be cheaper, if vulnerable to the central power supply being destroyed. So you don't just get a flexible defense, you also get more redundancy. As extra power generators are added (either at the same facility or multiple facilities), more satellites can be activated at the same time.

For all we know the satellites were delivered from Cardassia Prime, and the orbital power generator was a quick conversion made on-site. As a result, you effectively have civilians running the fire control, instead of trained personnel. The civilians used the default fire control and pre-programmed alternatives, but didn't recognize what the Federation ships were doing until it was too late. A trained military crew would have changed fire priorities immediately.

At Cardassia Prime, I'd expect multiple generators, each working off a different frequency (because everything in Star trek has to have a vulnerable frequency). If one generator gets destroyed, the satellites will automatically switch to another generator and keep on going. So that final battle would have been rough. The satellite operators could have set up ambushes (set a group of satellites to shields only, then suddenly divert power to them for their weapons to catch a group of F/K/R ships in a crossfire). Think of it as a set of defenders able to move around at near c. It also provides a form of centralized control, which any proper Cardassian would want (Seen in this episode).