Federation Fleet Strength

[Ted C]

We know for a fact that Federation forces are spread pretty thin. It took days for a single starship to respond to a distress signal in "Survivors". With days to prepare, the Federation was only able to scramble about 40 ships to defend its seat of government in "Best of Both Worlds". I propose to find an upper limit on the number of ships in the Federation fleet.

According to Picard in "ST: First Contact", the Federation has 150 member worlds. If Starfleet were able to gather 40 ships at every single one of these planets simultaneously (which I consider a highly unlikely prospect), they would have 6000 ships.

Other Alpha Quadrant powers most likely have similar fleet resources. In their own territory, the Dominion most likely has considerably more ships at their disposal, as do the Borg.

[Admiral Piett]

It seems that they are capable of building 40 ships in a year,or at least this is a possible interpretation of the quote "we will take a year to recover from the losses"(I do not know if these were the exact words but the concept is this) referred to the battle of Wolf 359.The technical manual states that a ship remains in service for more or less 100 years and this seems confirmed by the great number of Miranda and Excelsior still in service.So 4000 ships should be a reasonable estimate of starfleet size,assuming that it remains constant.
Their fleet is spread thinly,but because they have a shitload of work: exploration means having many ships months,or maybe years away from strategic locations.And the federation itself seems quite big,subspace messages sent to some colonies can take months to arrive to destination
as it was stated in DS9 episode.

[consequences]

Shouldn't the thread title actually be "Federation Fleet Weakness?"

[Dark Primus]

Between 8,000-12,000 is the official number.

[Robert Walper]

We know for a fact that Federation forces are spread pretty thin. It took days for a single starship to respond to a distress signal in "Survivors". With days to prepare, the Federation was only able to scramble about 40 ships to defend its seat of government in "Best of Both Worlds".

Didn't they technically have months to prepare for a Borg invasion? I suppose it depends on their defense status, since they admitted they were caught "unprepared".

It should ne noted that within minutes in ST:VOY "Endgame", Starfleet was able to muster 18 ships into Sector 001, with a further 9 more on the way.

I propose to find an upper limit on the number of ships in the Federation fleet.

This number could have changed substantially through the Dominion war however. They were in war production mode.

According to Picard in "ST: First Contact", the Federation has 150 member worlds. If Starfleet were able to gather 40 ships at every single one of these planets simultaneously (which I consider a highly unlikely prospect), they would have 6000 ships.

I haven't the faintest clue as to whether or not any figure has been canonly given for the Federation's fleet strength. It could be far less than 6000, or possibly a great deal more with ships exploring the galaxy constantly.

Other Alpha Quadrant powers most likely have similar fleet resources. In their own territory, the Dominion most likely has considerably more ships at their disposal, as do the Borg.

For the Borg, we know they have at least 878 spheres, 630 standard cubes and 138 tactical cubes after their extensive war with Species 8472 which cost them at least hundreds, if not thousands of vessels.

[Bryan]

And by member worlds did Picard include colonies and non-homeworld worlds?

The official number as stated is between 8,000 to 12,000. One of the producers, Brannon or Braga IIRC said this.

[Robert Walper]

And by member worlds did Picard include colonies and non-homeworld worlds?

Undoubtably, he referred to major member worlds, like Vulcan, Earth, Betazed, etc.

The official number as stated is between 8,000 to 12,000. One of the producers, Brannon or Braga IIRC said this.

Unfortunately, what Brannon or Braga says may be interpreted as official, but until we get something canon, the number means nothing. If they said the Borg have over five million cubes at their disposal, as nice as it sounds, it wouldn't mean much to me unless it's somehow backed up by canon sources, namely, the episodes and movies.

[Mr Bean]

It should ne noted that within minutes in ST:VOY "Endgame", Starfleet was able to muster 18 ships into Sector 001, with a further 9 more on the way.

It could be said that they learned thier lesson and keep more ships in orbit

[Alyeska]

Here is a relatively realistic way to look at this.

Lets take a look at the 8-12K figure for the Fed fleet. Lets start at 12K just for simplicity.

My first impression from seeing the Dominion war episodes was that the Federation had a lot of Frankenstein ships and lots of Miranda's and Excelsiors. Now in Unification PT-1 we saw a Federation ship debot that had a fair number of ships in mothball. Most noteably they were made up almost entirely of Excelsiors and Miranda's. Now most of the Frankestien ships were also made up of such parts. So of a fleet of 12,000 ships, and given that mothball fleets can be relatively large, I would estimate at least 3,000 ships were former mothball ships and ship pieces. That leaves us with 9,000 ships. Traditionally it requires 3 ships for a single one to be on active duty. 1 ship is active duty, one ship is in preperation for active duty and training, one ship is in drydock recieving repairs and upgrades. Apply that number to the fleet and you suddenly have 3,000 ships. Factor in the mothball fleet aditions and you now have 4,000 active ships. Then you have to account that with war comming, most ships are going to be rushed into service. So before the start of the war its likely the Federation would possibly have bumped 2-3,000 more ships. So lets say 6,000 ships in active service. As the war progresses ships are lost, ships in repair come in and replace the losses. Ships are salvaged and spliced together with other ships (hence the Intrepid combinations). Then you got the new ships slowly comming online. Those will also come into play as the war progresses. More newer ships, fewer old ships.

There is one bit that supports the idea of the mothball fleet. Shortly after the end of WW2 a great majority of the US fleet went into reserve including fairly need Battleships. In the VGR episode End Game I noted a single Excelsior and no Miranda's. Durring the Dominion war episode the Miranda's and Excelsiors were the largest portions of the fleet, yet Earth had but a single Excelsior to be seen durring End Game. This heavily indicates that the Federation stood down its older forces.

That means of a fleet of 12,000 ships, shortly before the war there would be 4,000 some ships in active duty. Durring BOBW the Federation suffered the worst ship loss in recent history (or so it seemed). It would take a year to recoop the losses they said. That indicates to me it would take time to accomidate the losses of those ships and fully fix the coverage loss that resulted. That doesn't mean it severly affected the fleet. Now take this into account. After BOBW there was still Borg evidence. The Federation was already recooping from the BOBW losses. Then the wormhole is discovered. New threats to deal with. Then the Dominion is eventually discovered, BIG threat. So it seems logical the Federation was ramping up its ship production from shortly after BOBW. That would give us a very good explination as to why there were so many Galaxy Class ships seen in the Dominion War.

[isolinear]

Today, Federation fleet consists of a large number of upgraded defiant classes and akiras...
Big and heavy cruisers such as sovereign are kept as reserves in the event of heavy battles. The federation resources are now commited on large number of small ships than small number of heavy ships.

[Imperial Federation]

I think the Federation doesn't have anywhere near 12,000 ships even in the war, even with recommisioned ships, when the loss of half a fleet of 100 ships is considered crippling.

[Dark Primus]

I think the Federation doesn't have anywhere near 12,000 ships even in the war, even with recommisioned ships, when the loss of half a fleet of 100 ships is considered crippling.

And there is no idea on how much losses the Dominion took. Star fleet clearly must rely on quality in order to win that war while Dominion relied on numbers. So one Fedederation/Klingon/Romulan ship probably took out large number of Jem'Hadar attack ships before themselves being destroyed.

Before the final episode it was stated Dominion had over 30,000 ships but still Federation Alliance kept those forces at bay, despite they couldn't have mustered more than 5,000 ships in the final battle?

[Alyeska]

I think the Federation doesn't have anywhere near 12,000 ships even in the war, even with recommisioned ships, when the loss of half a fleet of 100 ships is considered crippling.

FYI Starfleet expected to loose 2 BILLION personel if they lost the war, and hundreds of Billions of civilians.

Lets look at that. 2 Billion people in Starfleet. Now lets just ASSUME that every ship in Starlfeet is a Galaxy class fully crewed at 1000 people. That is 12 million naval personel working on starships, or .6% of Starfleet. Thats right, Starfleet is so large that if they had a fleet of 12 thousand Galaxy Class Starships and fully crewed them at 1,000 crew per ships, they would still have 99.4% of their personel left. Starfleet has the crew members to support 12,000 ships of varrying sizes on down to the lowly Miranda and Sabre.

Now lets look at this. Say you send in an attack force of 114 ships, and lets say your attack FAILS and you loose 98 ships. You just recieved 86% losses and FAILED to achieve your objective. Even if you have 12,000 ships, don't you think that is still a massive loss?

[Imperial Federation]

You however fail to consider space and ground starbase personnel, their ground fighting forces (ha ha ha) and all of that, all of whom are part of Starfleet.

If they did have 12,000 ships, why didn't they have enough even to protect Betazed from invasion when they had to move their fleets?

And where do they say 2 billion anyway?

[Alyeska]

You however fail to consider space and ground starbase personnel, their ground fighting forces (ha ha ha) and all of that, all of whom are part of Starfleet.

If they did have 12,000 ships, why didn't they have enough even to protect Betazed from invasion when they had to move their fleets?

And where do they say 2 billion anyway?

The Modern US military has a figure of 10-1. It takes 10 military personel to support 1 combat military personel. If Starfleet had 12 THOUSAND GCSs all fulled staffed with 1,000 personel, they would have aproximately 165-1 for the support. Thats 12 million naval personel. If they had 24 million ground personel (seemingly unlikely) the support figure drops to 55-1. Still very generous on the support issue.

And why didn't the Federation have enough forces to Defend Bajor? At that time the Romulan's were not yet in the war, and the Dominion outnumbered the Federation 2-1. They were fighting a loosing war for almost an entire year, and you quesiton why they took losses? We SAW them taking losses, we know they were loosing. Even with 12,000 ships (at least 3,000 being older models, and they actually have fewer because they were fighting for more then 3 months by this point) you will loose ships.

[Imperial Federation]

You however fail to consider space and ground starbase personnel, their ground fighting forces (ha ha ha) and all of that, all of whom are part of Starfleet.

If they did have 12,000 ships, why didn't they have enough even to protect Betazed from invasion when they had to move their fleets?

And where do they say 2 billion anyway?

The Modern US military has a figure of 10-1. It takes 10 military personel to support 1 combat military personel. If Starfleet had 12 THOUSAND GCSs all fulled staffed with 1,000 personel, they would have aproximately 165-1 for the support. Thats 12 million naval personel. If they had 24 million ground personel (seemingly unlikely) the support figure drops to 55-1. Still very generous on the support issue.

If it sounds stupid, well, it IS the Federation.
We simply have never seen evidence of that many ships, it doesn't matter if they have the personnel if they don't have the ships.

And why didn't the Federation have enough forces to Defend Bajor? At that time the Romulan's were not yet in the war, and the Dominion outnumbered the Federation 2-1. They were fighting a loosing war for almost an entire year, and you quesiton why they took losses? We SAW them taking losses, we know they were loosing. Even with 12,000 ships (at least 3,000 being older models, and they actually have fewer because they were fighting for more then 3 months by this point) you will loose ships.

I said Betazed, which seems to be one of the Federation's core worlds.
If they can't even protect THAT, they must have a shortage of ships.

[TheDarkling]

Imperial Federation: The fleet defending Betazed moved to do some combat training and the planetary defences werent upto scratch (you heard me planetary defences - on a fed world ??!!!?? ) the dominon swept in and captured the planet in 10 hours.

[Imperial Federation]

Imperial Federation: The fleet defending Betazed moved to do some combat training and the planetary defences werent upto scratch (you heard me planetary defences - on a fed world ??!!!?? ) the dominon swept in and captured the planet in 10 hours.

That in itself sounds rather stupid "hey! Let's go abandon the defense of an important world during war and go play war games!", but I guess that explains it. Still, I personally think that if they had enough ships they should've left some behind. Idiots.

[Alyeska]

[quote="Imperial Federation"]If it sounds stupid, well, it IS the Federation.
We simply have never seen evidence of that many ships, it doesn't matter if they have the personnel if they don't have the ships.
quote]

On the contrary, we have PLENTY of evidence that they have the ships. We see evidence by personel, Rick Sternbeck said 12,000, and if you look at the 3-1 rule it explains why there is relatively so few ships at any one moment.

[Alyeska]

Imperial Federation: The fleet defending Betazed moved to do some combat training and the planetary defences werent upto scratch (you heard me planetary defences - on a fed world ??!!!?? ) the dominon swept in and captured the planet in 10 hours.

That in itself sounds rather stupid "hey! Let's go abandon the defense of an important world during war and go play war games!", but I guess that explains it. Still, I personally think that if they had enough ships they should've left some behind. Idiots.

Durring the US attack to take Kiska in WW2, radar detected a disturbance so an entire portion of the US fleet pretty much emptied their guns on the spot, then moved off to reload. Durring a point of several hours an entire porition of the sea surounding that island was left completely open (not a single US ship) and the Japanesse fleet was able to slip in and pick up every single soldier from the island, and slip away without being detected. Mistakes happen.

[Imperial Federation]

If it sounds stupid, well, it IS the Federation.
We simply have never seen evidence of that many ships, it doesn't matter if they have the personnel if they don't have the ships.
quote]

On the contrary, we have PLENTY of evidence that they have the ships. We see evidence by personel, Rick Sternbeck said 12,000, and if you look at the 3-1 rule it explains why there is relatively so few ships at any one moment.

Like I said, enough personnel will not make ships out of thin air, and what Rick Sternback says isn't canon, and they all ignore what he says anyway.

[Imperial Federation]

Imperial Federation: The fleet defending Betazed moved to do some combat training and the planetary defences werent upto scratch (you heard me planetary defences - on a fed world ??!!!?? ) the dominon swept in and captured the planet in 10 hours.

That in itself sounds rather stupid "hey! Let's go abandon the defense of an important world during war and go play war games!", but I guess that explains it. Still, I personally think that if they had enough ships they should've left some behind. Idiots.

Durring the US attack to take Kiska in WW2, radar detected a disturbance so an entire portion of the US fleet pretty much emptied their guns on the spot, then moved off to reload. Durring a point of several hours an entire porition of the sea surounding that island was left completely open (not a single US ship) and the Japanesse fleet was able to slip in and pick up every single soldier from the island, and slip away without being detected. Mistakes happen.

Yeah, mistakes happen. But I think that letting your enemy capture your people and territory because you were out playing war games is a rather big blunder.

[TheDarkling]

It was described as a rather big blunder so theres no problem .

[Stravo]

I remember that the Dominion occupied Beta Zed (and were threatening Vulcan) but I don't remember that particular detail ABOUT the capture of Beta Zed. What episode was that in because that little tid bit is hilarious!

[TheDarkling]

6.19 In the Pale Moonlight.
Its a good episode - they were also threatening Alpha Centuri which would also mean earth in my book but apparently SF didnt consider Earth to be under threat.