It was inevitable...What's Captain Sisko's worst fuck-up?

[Antediluvian]

Here is what I think it was:


Allowing Dominion reinforcements to come through the wormhole for weeks while they were practically in a state of war with them!

How did this idiot get to command anything above a garbage scow?

Jesus Christ.

[Darth Wong]

He might not have had a choice; he may have been held up by Starfleet Command, the ultimate den of fools.

In any case, I think a better example of his incompetence can be found in "Sacrifice of Angels." Consider:

• it is absolutely imperative that he reach DS9 before Dukat can disable the minefield.
• He is confronted with a large Dominion wall of ships: 1200 ships, mostly fighters.
• He has 600 ships, of which an unknown percentage are fighters.
• He decides to keep his fleet in one unit and take the Dominion fleet head-on, rather than spreading out his forces and coming at DS9 from multiple vectors.

Think about it: from a defensive standpoint, it's much easier to deal with an attacker if he keeps all his forces in a single unit and attacks from just one direction. It greatly simplifies your tactics. Therefore, only a complete idiot would choose to attack in that manner!

[Enlightenment]

Here is what I think it was:
Allowing Dominion reinforcements to come through the wormhole for weeks while they were practically in a state of war with them!

There were three huge ones after that.

If we take at face value the position that the wormhole minefield could only be disabled from DS9 and not by any of the Dominion ships, then blunder #2 is failing to prevent DS9 from falling into the hands of the enemy. An ideal solution would have been to end the station disabling program with a call to the station self destruct routine. For added measure a few conditionals could be added so the station would destruct as soon as Dukat and/or a Founder stepped on board. Too bad for the Bajorans, of course, but war is hell...

While everything worked out okay in the end, counting on devine intervention isn't exactly a smart way to fight.

Blunder #3 is allowing Odo to return to and cure the rest of the Founders. Rescuing a enemy with both superior forces and an absolute belief in its right to rule everyone else is an incredibly stupid move at best. Somone should have stuffed Odo, the other changeling, Bashir, and everyone else with direct knowledge of the plague cure on a few expendable shuttles and used them for Defiant target practice.

Blunder #4 is beaming down alone to confront Dukat in the Pa'wraith cave rather than, say, flattening the area with q-torps or simply beaming Dukat and Winn into solid objects.


Sisko's fundamental mistake, however, was fighting not in the direction which lead most rapidly to victory but rather in the direction which lead to maximum drama.

[Cpt_Frank]

Hmm, considering that an attack from multiple vectors would have to be well planned and would require at least some coordination of actions between the attacking groups, you can understand Sisko didn't do it that way, I mean, would you think SF personel could execute such a "complicated" plan without fuck-ups? Those guys are lacking even the most basic knowledge of tactics!

[SPOOFE]

He shouldn't have stopped at one punch... he should have beat the crap out of Q when he had the chance!

Besides that...

He should have made a replica of his prized baseball and stuffed some ultra-concentrated explosive - maybe a tiny bit of antimatter (and a containment field, of course) - into it. Set it so that it detonates when picked up. Say goodbye to the entirety of the Cardassian leadership.

[Sothis]

I don't think he had a lot of choice in SOA. His original plan would see the arrival of another Fed fleet plus back up from the Klingons. Instead he had to rush a plan into action.

And yes, perhaps he could have broken up his fleet. The Dominion could have simply broken off their fleet into smaller numbers and intercepted them. Remember, the Dominion had a fleet twice the size to play with, so they could have afforded to send out intercepting fleets.

The bigger screw-up in that battle was Gowron's stalling to send a fleet into a battle that even before they knew the minefield was coming down, Gowron knew was going to be critical to the whole war. Ah yes, and Dukat's plan to close his forces around Sisko's fleet. Why not simply move to outflank them straight away? Or even when the Defiant had breached the lines, why not order pursuit?

Out of interest, where has it been stated or implied that Fed fighters are considered part of the fleet numbers?

[Sea Skimmer]

Not having the Defiant glass the surface position where the Jem'Hadar were landing in the Siege of AR-588 was a pretty stupid move. The rough terrain would have easily protected the array from a low yield torpedo or phaser blast.

[Akira]

He might not have had a choice; he may have been held up by Starfleet Command, the ultimate den of fools.

In any case, I think a better example of his incompetence can be found in "Sacrifice of Angels." Consider:

• it is absolutely imperative that he reach DS9 before Dukat can disable the minefield.
• He is confronted with a large Dominion wall of ships: 1200 ships, mostly fighters.
• He has 600 ships, of which an unknown percentage are fighters.
• He decides to keep his fleet in one unit and take the Dominion fleet head-on, rather than spreading out his forces and coming at DS9 from multiple vectors.

Think about it: from a defensive standpoint, it's much easier to deal with an attacker if he keeps all his forces in a single unit and attacks from just one direction. It greatly simplifies your tactics. Therefore, only a complete idiot would choose to attack in that manner!

There were 1200 Dominion/Cardassian ships, up to 40% of which were Jem'Hadar ATTACK SHIPS. The Dominion does not have fighters. Those ships are the size of a Defiant.

He has 632 ships + an unknown number of fighters. Fighters are not counted in fleet counts.

Out of interest, where has it been stated or implied that Fed fighters are considered part of the fleet numbers?

Nowhere. It's just something Mike Wong used to try to lower the number of captail ships in the UFP. Starfleet had 12000 Cap ships just before the start of the Dominion war. This count DOES NOT inculde fighters, shuttles, runabouts, tugs, shuttlepods or anything else. (Like member fleets, priv ships etc)

Here is what I think it was:


Allowing Dominion reinforcements to come through the wormhole for weeks while they were practically in a state of war with them!

How did this idiot get to command anything above a garbage scow?

Jesus Christ.

And yet, the Dominion could only spare 200 ships to attack DS9 with. (and the next ep we see after that is 5 months later)
so the Dominion goes from 200 spare ships for attack fleets, to 15000+ in the space of 5 months with only Cardassian systems to use.

If we take at face value the position that the wormhole minefield could only be disabled from DS9 and not by any of the Dominion ships, then blunder #2 is failing to prevent DS9 from falling into the hands of the enemy. An ideal solution would have been to end the station disabling program with a call to the station self destruct routine. For added measure a few conditionals could be added so the station would destruct as soon as Dukat and/or a Founder stepped on board. Too bad for the Bajorans, of course, but war is hell...

So Sisko is going to destoy the most important base in the AQ?
DS9 is the key to the AQ. Who ever controls it controls who can use the wormhole. So if they blast DS9 to hell as soon as the Dominion takes over, then when the UFP recovers the Bajor sector how are they going to base thier ships, control the wormhole and have a front line command base? They would have to biuld a new base.

He did a good job of disabling it. The Dominion had to move resources to fixing the station, which would have delayed their move into UFP space.

[Darth Wong]

He has 632 ships + an unknown number of fighters. Fighters are not counted in fleet counts.

Evidence? Pilots refer to their fighters as "ships" today. Therefore, the burden of proof is on you to show that they do not regard fighters (or other light craft like shuttles and runabouts) as "ships" in Star Trek, particularly since their industrial capacity does not suggest the ability to conjure up fleets of 600 full-blown capital ships (see "Best of Both Worlds"; even if we assume an order of magnitude improvement, it would be inadequate).

Starfleet had 12000 Cap ships just before the start of the Dominion war. This count DOES NOT inculde fighters, shuttles, runabouts, tugs, shuttlepods or anything else. (Like member fleets, priv ships etc)

Bullshit. You are using a hearsay offscreen quote, which is neither canon or official. Moreover, it was explicitly stated to include support craft, and you are lying about it referring exclusively to capital warships. What is it about you hardcore Trekkie fanatics that makes you want to lie in order to exaggerate Trek power? Provide a shred of canon evidence for this 12,000 ship count, particularly when they have only 150 planets, so this would mean 80 capships per planet, and Earth was only guarded by one ship in "Paradise Lost".

And yet, the Dominion could only spare 200 ships to attack DS9 with. (and the next ep we see after that is 5 months later) so the Dominion goes from 200 spare ships for attack fleets, to 15000+ in the space of 5 months with only Cardassian systems to use.

Evidence? Show us these 15,000+ warships; they did not appear in any battles onscreen, nor were they even mentioned.

So Sisko is going to destoy the most important base in the AQ?
DS9 is the key to the AQ. Who ever controls it controls who can use the wormhole. So if they blast DS9 to hell as soon as the Dominion takes over, then when the UFP recovers the Bajor sector how are they going to base thier ships, control the wormhole and have a front line command base? They would have to biuld a new base.

Of course, but it would still be a good idea. Nobody with a functioning brain lets the enemy assume control of a military base which he can swiftly take over for his own use. Ever heard of the "scorched Earth" strategy? It works.

He did a good job of disabling it. The Dominion had to move resources to fixing the station, which would have delayed their move into UFP space.

Don't be ridiculous. The station was fully habitable with life support and main power, and it only needed its computer systems repaired. That's nothing. Why wasn't it hulled? Why wasn't its main reactor disabled? Why weren't boarding parties forced to walk around in spacesuits because the atmosphere was evacuated and the life support systems destroyed? Why wasn't it massively sabotaged with lethal booby traps? Why wasn't it completely destroyed? If the Federation has anywhere near the industrial capacity you attribute to them (without a shred of evidence, I might add), they should be able to build another one in a couple of months with no significant effect on their shipbuilding.

This is why it's nice to have TheDarkling around; at least he doesn't habitually lie about the facts, so he reminds us that not all Trekkies are like this "Akira" pinhead.

[Isolder74]

another thing is the fact that the mine field can be turned off at all. any good mine field would be autononomus of any outside control system. In the case of the laying power they already know where the mines are so can easily remove them. so an outside method of disabling the mines is idiotic

[Blaze]

With 1200 ships and the stations firepower couldn't the dominion just simultaneously destroy all the mines

[Sothis]

He has 632 ships + an unknown number of fighters. Fighters are not counted in fleet counts.

Evidence? Pilots refer to their fighters as "ships" today. Therefore, the burden of proof is on you to show that they do not regard fighters (or other light craft like shuttles and runabouts) as "ships" in Star Trek, particularly since their industrial capacity does not suggest the ability to conjure up fleets of 600 full-blown capital ships (see "Best of Both Worlds"; even if we assume an order of magnitude improvement, it would be inadequate).

The fleet in 'Tears of the Prophets' did not appear to contain any fighters, yet it is not unreasonable to assume that each government contributed a large number of ships to the taking of Chintoka- particularly given the strength of the OWPs they were facing.

Starfleet had 12000 Cap ships just before the start of the Dominion war. This count DOES NOT inculde fighters, shuttles, runabouts, tugs, shuttlepods or anything else. (Like member fleets, priv ships etc)

Bullshit. You are using a hearsay offscreen quote, which is neither canon or official. Moreover, it was explicitly stated to include support craft, and you are lying about it referring exclusively to capital warships. What is it about you hardcore Trekkie fanatics that makes you want to lie in order to exaggerate Trek power? Provide a shred of canon evidence for this 12,000 ship count, particularly when they have only 150 planets, so this would mean 80 capships per planet, and Earth was only guarded by one ship in "Paradise Lost".

Yet come 'Favour the Bold', it does seem that there is a larger force protecting earth. Sisko wanted to pull a fleet (The 5th fleet, if I recall correctly) from earth to help form his attack force.

Depending on whether or not you accept fleet numbers in the region of 100 or so ships (as the 7th fleet was), this could give us around 100 ships per fleet. This does not match however, with the 600 or so ships formed by the combination of two fleets in 'SOA'.

What all that means for Fed fleet strength is that either in times of war, the Feds can increase their ship-building capacity, or they simply had more ships than believed. Given the lack of a major threat (aside from the Borg) until the Dominion arrived, I believe the former. When the Founders showed they could infiltrate earth, The Federation took the threat seriously for a change.

[Sothis]

Whoops, didn't get the whole 'quote' thing sorted. Sorry for any confusion.

[TheDarkling]

Depending on whether or not you accept fleet numbers in the region of 100 or so ships (as the 7th fleet was), this could give us around 100 ships per fleet. This does not match however, with the 600 or so ships formed by the combination of two fleets in 'SOA'.

Actual the combo was of elements of two fleets not two entire fleets.

There is also mention of the feds re-building shipyards, this could be because the Dominon destroyed some (we have no mention of this however) or because the Feds were building shipyards that they got rid of when they disarmed after ST 6.

The quote from BOBW was less than a year and the quote isnt exacly great its self it doesnt give us an exact time period but when she says have the fleet back up does she mean they will have recovered the 40 ship loses or that the fleet will have got actual the normal increase of ships plus the 40 ships.

They could have refit 40 ships inside a year to replce the wolf 359 loses without affecting their normal shipbuilding (the loses werent of new shiups and most of them seemed to be ships that had be dragged into action for the crisis.

The above is simply a way to match the big fleet number to the 40 ships quote for evidence of the 12,000 ships see the thread on the subject.

[tharkûn]

Sisko's biggest blunder has been his consistent insistance of fighting on the ground when he should be using orbital bombardment to kill his enemies. As mentioned Dukat should have been killed from long range with high powered explosives, if not earlier when DS9 was blown apart as he boards it. Likewise at AR588 he should have had the defiant fire one salvo in the general direction of the incoming troops.

SOA is not that huge of a blunder. Splitting your fleets only works if the enemy doesn't know where they are, or where they are coming from. For instance if his Fleet is at Earth and he splits in two to attack from opposite directions, if the Dominion can track his fleet movements, relay that information, and then have time for their fleet's to reposition (which is not unlikely as they have a far shorter distance to travel) he would likely end up with the same odds on two seperate fronts ... and about the same odds of breaking through.

Besides which even if he gets ahead of the Dominion and does get into better position, they need only retreat their fleet closer to DS9 until his multivector assualt converges. Remember the Dominion does not have to defend territory or a strategic line ... just a point. As such if they get flanked, englobed, or anything else interesting they just fall back to that point and fight there.

What Sisko should have done was move the feddie fleet into position and draw the Dominion fleet away from DS9. Their job is to just keep the dominion busy. Send the *cloaked* Klingon fleet to DS9 as the dominion will not know where they are coming from, as opposed to having the Klingons head to battle site.

[TheDarkling]

The Dominion can track cloaked ships going faster than warp 6 and they were in a bit of a rush.

[Patrick Degan]

I definitely hold Capt. Sisko's failure to destroy DS9 on the retreat as his primary military blunder —that, and failing to collapse the Alpha Quadrant terminus of the wormhole because of his devotion to the Prophets. The objection raised in this thread of the station's importance for control of the Alpha Quadrant is, in fact, the primary reason for blowing up the station. Indeed, it is a primary rule of warfare, if forced to abandon a base, to destroy all facilities and materiél which could be of use to an enemy occupying force. The destruction of a few control computers is a relatively minor annoyance considering that the units on board the station were the very same Cardassian mainframes in place aboard the station when the Federation took over. All Gul Dukat needed to do was to put in an order with DellCardassia™ for replacements of the same model series. A week to install and to put up with Tech Support to work out the bugs in the OS and Terok Nor is back in business.

If collapsing the wormhole was not feasible for him, then the destruction of the space station became doubly important.

The Sisko fucked up on that one. The only reason the Dominion lost the war in the end was because they are even more tactically inept than the Federation.

[TheDarkling]

He did try to close the wormhole once but a founder stopped him and infact made the wormhole too stable to close (they could still have destroyed it but that would of destroyed the Prophets and SF takes a dim view of killing non combatants).

The dominion lost in the end because they were outclassed but it wasnt a very good war since it went something like this.

Feds lost control of DS9.
Feds get hammered.
Feds retake DS9.
Dominion retrteats.
Dominion tries for peace.
Dominion takes Betazed.
Romulans enter war and catch Dominion off guard.
Fed/Rom/Kling Allliance invades one system.
Breen attack earth and join Dominion.
Feds repulsed from Chintoka and Breen energy weapon defeats alliance fleet with ease.
Cardy rebels begin attacks.
Alliance counters Breen weapon - Dominion falls back.
Cardies join Alliance and the Dominion surrenders.

As you can see there is one major invasion of a Cardy system in the entire war, 1 in 2 years of fighting.
The Dominion also makes only one major invasion (at least from what we are told).
Its clear that in ST its all about the ships and nothing but the ships.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

I definitely hold Capt. Sisko's failure to destroy DS9 on the retreat as his primary military blunder
. . .
If collapsing the wormhole was not feasible for him, then the destruction of the space station became doubly important.

Well, you can't quite fault him for not blowing up DS9. It's not like Starfleet has the industrial resources to replace it, should they have retaken Bajor. They were willing to put up with all the headaches of taking over DS9, and willing to risk the Cardassians leaving nasty surprises when they (the Federation) won the station in the treaty that started off the series. Why? It was orders of magnitude easier than constructing a Starfleet-style outpost.

What one can fault him for is not trashing the station thoroughly before leaving it. Sure, leave the hulk behind, but make them waste the effort repairing it.

[Typhonis 1]

This is stupid I mean the writers were trying to portray a war in space but theyy mucked it up royally >DS9 should have been blown up or booby traped so that whn it was reactivated BOOM .The Wormhole should have been collapsed and the Federation should have at least had a working military in place to defend themselvs with..Starfleets main purpose it EXPLORATION not ass kicking which is why they suck at it.

[Master of Ossus]

I think it was his ludicrous assault on the center of Cardassian/Dominion lines, even after he STATED that he knew it was a trap. What was he trying to do? Make that Cardassians prove their ability to wipe out a force half their size?

[Patrick Degan]

I definitely hold Capt. Sisko's failure to destroy DS9 on the retreat as his primary military blunder
. . .
If collapsing the wormhole was not feasible for him, then the destruction of the space station became doubly important.

Well, you can't quite fault him for not blowing up DS9. It's not like Starfleet has the industrial resources to replace it, should they have retaken Bajor. They were willing to put up with all the headaches of taking over DS9, and willing to risk the Cardassians leaving nasty surprises when they (the Federation) won the station in the treaty that started off the series. Why? It was orders of magnitude easier than constructing a Starfleet-style outpost.

Well... yes I can. The difficulty in replacing a space station is immaterial. The object is to deny the enemy the ability to control the approaches to the wormhole and also make it impossible for them to decrypt the control protocols for the mines blocking the terminus. The Federation can construct spacedock-type stations and smaller Regula-One class research stations. All you'd need as a temporary replacement for the purposes of traffic control is two or three of those until the Federation could get a full-sized spacedock facility out to Bajor. But no matter the inconvenience to the Federation long-term, the short-term inconvenience for the Dominion was the more important consideration.

You can worry about replacing DS9 after you've flattened Cardassia Prime.

[0.1]

One has to wonder how Sisko think he is going to stop the station from detonating the minefield in the first place? I mean his options were what exactly?

1) He naively expected to fight and win against a Dominion fleet double the size of his fleet.
2) He naively expected to take the station with what army on the Defiant? His 50+ men crew? Or was he expecting a mass uprising by the locals on the space station...
3) Given his lack of willingness to be ruthless (or effective), what did he expect to do when he gets to DS9? Blow it up? Not that he can in the first place, but would he do it with so many Bajorans on it, if the answer was yes, then he would've took down the wormhole long ago.
4) Or was he expecting somehow to break through with enough ships loaded with starfleet security to take over the station?

Just a bunch of questions that no one has considered.

[Sothis]

What a lot of people seem to be forgetting in regards to DS9 is that it wasn't Sisko's station to destroy. It was Bajoran property, and the Bajorans, despite their good relationship with the Federation, would not have appreciated the destruction of their only major station.

In regards to the wormhole, Sisko did try to collapse it in 'In Puragtory's Shadow'. However, Founder sabotage stopped his efforts, instead strengthing the wormhole, rendering it nearly indestructable.

In regards to the assault in SOA, Dukat was the more foolish commander if you ask me. He allowed Sisko hour upon hour to strafe and weaken the Cardassian vessels in the lines, then attempted to make use of an obvious trap that was dealt with by a few Galaxy-class ships attacking the flanks. He botched things, despite having a fleet twice the size of Sisko's. Why not simply move to out-flank Sisko immediately, rather than letting his fleet be weakened?

Finally, the aim upon reaching DS9 was not to capture it (at least, not once the urgency about the mines was revealed), but to destroy the anti-graviton emitter. A good old fashioned ramming tactic is probably what Sisko would have had to do, perhaps even if the Defiant had other ships supporting it. It always seems to appear that it takes a fleet of several dozen ships to break DS9's shields, so a ship by itself might have no choice but to ram the station.

[Akira]

From the looks of things, some of you have no idea about anything to do with Starfleet, the UFP, the Bajorans, the Cardassians or the Dominion.

Once I have some time, I will answer anything before this post. (I don't have time to type something up now, I have to get off in about 20 mins, and it will take a lot longer then that to look up everything and quote what needs quoting)