Single Star Destroyer vs. Sacrifice of Angels

[PREDATOR490]

Forward: I am interested in how a ISD would physically perform vs a large Star Trek fleet. This is purely ship to ship combat with no interest in politics or greater implications on the settings.

Situation: DS9: Sacrifice of Angels
600 Federation ships are approaching to retake DS9 to stop the Dominion bringing in more reinforcements through the wormhole. The fleet is under the command of Sisko with the Defiant at the head. Backing down is not an option for the Federation.

1254 Dominion ships are standing between the Federation fleet and DS9. Backing down is not an option for the Dominion.

Premise:
Due to plot, a standard Star Destroyer is dropped between these two fleets with a full complement before the Star Trek fleets converge and the battle kicks off. The Star Destroyer has been disabled but repairs are underway which will put the Star Destroyer at full combat performance moments before the fleets can start firing. However, the Star Destroyer's hyperdrive will take longer to fix and thus the only option is for the Star Destroyer to stand her ground. The crew of the Star Destroyer are competent and reasonably level headed. The Star Destroyer will effectively wait until the unknown alien fleets open fire before responding.

Neither the Dominion or the Federation are in a position to slow down with the new arrival and attempts at communication have failed.

Option A:
An over-eager Federation ship takes a pot shot at the Star Destroyer.
The Star Destroyer brings herself about to oppose the Federation fleet and effectively sides with the Dominion

Option B:
A Dominon ship takes a pot shot at the Star Destroyer
The Star Destroyer brings herself about to oppose the Dominion fleet and effectively sides with the Federation

Option C:
Both sides take shots at the Star Destroyer
The Star Destroyer effectively decides to side with noone and engage everyone


Additonal:
A Klingon Fleet will arrive to reinforce the Federation, I do not know how long it took for that fleet to arrive and the number of those ships was never mentioned in the episode.
For this assume 300 Klingon ships will arrive in two hours.


My Interest:
1) Can the Star Destroyer survive ?
2) How much of the opposing fleet can the Star Destroyer personally kill with the "allied" fleet supporting
3) How quickly can the Star Destroyer kill enemy ships and could it wipe out the fleet(s) ?
4) Can the ISD essentially exterminate the enemy fleets before the Klingons arrive

[The Romulan Republic]

Hmm.

Well, ICS is no longer canon, but if we presume anything like those numbers, of course, the ISD can mop the floor with both fleets in a straight slug-fest (barring some bizarre technobabble counter- this is Star Trek after all).

It’s very unlikely that the Federation would fire unprovoked, however, and I'd like to think that even the Dominion (or the Klingons, for that matter) wouldn't be that stupidly aggressive. Simply taking a sensor reading of the ISD's power output (if not jammed) ought to show that attacking when not necessary is a very, very bad idea.

I could see both sides sitting down to negotiate and curry favor with the ISD's captain, with a tense standoff and possibly skirmishes around the negotiations. Since the ISD is on its own, it might be more open to negotiating with “less advanced” powers than usual.

Beyond that... if it comes to a fight, the best bet is ramming, which is a tactic the Federation, and especially the Dominion and Klingons, are familiar with. We've seen repeatedly that ISDs appear more vulnerable to physical impacts through their shields than they're supposed to be to enemy fire.

There is a question of weather the Federation would think to resort to that before moral crumbled or the fleet was wiped out, though. And weather any ships could get close enough against turbo lasers. The Klingons ramming under cloak should be viable though, if they think to do it.

Alternately, the Federation could order the Klingon fleet (if its communications aren't jammed) to proceed under cloak and blow up DS9 to keep more Dominion ships coming through. Not sure why that didn't happen in canon, unless the Klingon fleet wasn't strong enough to take the station even without a defending fleet. Maybe they wanted to take out the Dominion fleet as well and try to preserve as many of their ships as possible.

[FedRebel]

Option A:
An over-eager Federation ship takes a pot shot at the Star Destroyer.
The Star Destroyer brings herself about to oppose the Federation fleet and effectively sides with the Dominion

Not viable, Starfleet discipline and precedence for First Contact diplomacy, make such a scenario invalid/obscenely unlikely

Option B:
A Dominon ship takes a pot shot at the Star Destroyer
The Star Destroyer brings herself about to oppose the Dominion fleet and effectively sides with the Federation

That'd be glorious, and probable.

though not as smooth, an Imperator conforms roughly with Federation/human design aesthetic....throw in human life readings, flag it hostile.

The Star Destroyer would mop the floor with the Dominion fleet, I'm thinking they break the fleet's back, things calm enough for dialog with the Federation.

The Imperator then jumps to DS9 with Sisko in a Runabout, pulverizes the Dominion fleet emerging from the wormhole aperture while The Sisko talks with Force Ghos..."Prophets". Meanwhile Stormtroopers board DS9, Royal Flush all the big names of Cardassian/Dominion leadership are captured before they can effect escape.

Option C:
Both sides take shots at the Star Destroyer
The Star Destroyer effectively decides to side with noone and engage everyone

Same as Optiion A, with a dash of "In God's name why?"

We'd be looking at a draw. Both fleets are crippled, the ISD is forced to withdraw. Bad News is that the Alliance no longer has the strength to make it to the wormhole, Dominion reinforcements arrive.

[PREDATOR490]

From the Wookieepedia - Imperial Star Destroyer

The Canon armaments are supposedly:
Taim & Bak XX-9 heavy turbolaser batteries (60)
Borstel NK-7 ion cannons (60)
Dual heavy turbolaser turrets (6)
Dual heavy ion cannon turrets (2)
Quad heavy turbolasers (2)
Triple medium turbolasers (3)
Medium turbolasers (2)

From a personal understanding and technical guesses:

1) I assume that a portion of those weapons can engage multiple targets - 60 guns shooting at 60 targets

2) I assume the time to identify, track, lock, fire and hit the target - 10 seconds

3) I assume 2 shots will kill a Star Trek ship - This is assuming a one shot miss margin for error and that one direct hit will kill

Given these assumptions.

60 Star Trek Ships being destroyed in 20 seconds

The Star Destroyer could destroy the Federation fleet in 200 seconds
The Star Destroyer could destroy the Dominion fleet in 400 seconds
The Star Destroyer could destroy both fleets in 600 seconds


As it stands, my visual understanding is that what will happen is this:

1) Star Trek ship takes a pot shot at the ISD. (By pot shot, I am including the potential for "accidentally" hitting the ISD with a weapon or crashing etc" in this term. Thus the Federation may not intentionally engage at the ISD but accidents do happen in a battlefield.)

2) ISD decides to respond and the order filters down until the ISD opens fire

3) 20 Seconds: 60 Star Trek ships have been destroyed

4) 40 seconds: 60 more ships have been destroyed

...

5) ISD is surrounded by debris


--------------------------------

I would like to know the 'proper' numbers that would be slotted in and ultimately use them to figure out how an ISD would perform.

As it stands, an ISD could destroy 2000 Star Trek ships within 1 hour and be undamaged ?

[Captain Seafort]

I'm not convinced it could do it quite that quickly. The discrepancies between the frequently quoted numbers and an inspection of the ship itself leads me to conclude that the 60 TLs mentioned are the light guns, only capable of single-digit Mt/shot, and therefore about equal to a photon torpedo salvo. That's enough to vaporise an unshielded Miranda-class, but I doubt you're looking at one-shot kills for any shielded ship, let alone the war-GCS/NCS. The light guns aren't all that accurate either - eyeballing their performance against the Tantive IV suggests that it took about a dozen shot to get on target (although the dense fleet formation both sides assumed will mitigate that).

[Khaat]

I think we all know the shots on the Tantive IV were to disable for capture, not to destroy. The goal there was to recover the DS plans/confirm the DS plans hadn't been sent on. Taking it (and its passengers) in mostly one piece would require more precision that shooting to destroy hostile ships ("Fire for the reactor cooling fin, so they are forced to shut down the reactor.")

Against a hostile/hostile posturing fleet, an ISD can obliterate most and pick a straggler for intelligence toward the end of the engagement (or coordinate to capture via boarding party.) That's also assuming the debris isn't littered with helpless escape pods with lifesigns.

[The Romulan Republic]

Going off the traditional firepower calcs., I doubt turbo lasers would give them time to get to escape pods, because their ships would either be "not hit" or "vaporized", no middle ground. Although if the ships were packed tightly, you might have explosions damaging nearby vessels, I suppose. Or non-instantly lethal hits if the Imperials launched fighters.

But really, it would be foolish to launch fighters. Why give the enemy something they can actually hurt to shoot at?

[Khaat]

I don't subscribe to a total energy transmission paradigm: a TL hit to a nacelle will blow off and destroy the nacelle, not transfer the remaining TL energy to the rest of the ship. It's possible to disable with overwhelming firepower merely by happenstance. Yes, a primary or secondary hull hit with TL fire would probably take a ship with all hands.

I guess the question would be "how small do the chunks need to be before gunners stop shooting them?"

[PREDATOR490]

I'm not convinced it could do it quite that quickly. The discrepancies between the frequently quoted numbers and an inspection of the ship itself leads me to conclude that the 60 TLs mentioned are the light guns, only capable of single-digit Mt/shot, and therefore about equal to a photon torpedo salvo. That's enough to vaporise an unshielded Miranda-class, but I doubt you're looking at one-shot kills for any shielded ship, let alone the war-GCS/NCS. The light guns aren't all that accurate either - eyeballing their performance against the Tantive IV suggests that it took about a dozen shot to get on target (although the dense fleet formation both sides assumed will mitigate that).

Going by this page: SW vs ST
The stats listed are for the Acclamator: Canon Page for the Acclamator

The light guns apparently do: 6 MT per shot
The heavy guns do: 200 GT per shot

The stats for the ISD: ISD Canon Page

A) The ISD does not have any 'light' guns and the majority are heavy turbolasers.

Are Taim & Bak XX-9 heavy turbolaser batteries light guns equal to the Acclamator light guns ?

What is the ISD equivalent of the heavy guns on the Acclamator ?


B) The ISD has 135 separate weapon systems according to the list but logically they will be placed equally throughout the hull for various coverage.
I assumed that 60 guns out of the 135 would be able to engage simultaneously an approaching force of the size seen in Sacrifice of Angels.
It is possible more or less guns would be able to engage but those guns would be drawing from the entire complement thus it will be a mixed bag.

I.E A majority of the guns firing would be the Taim & Bak XX-9 heavy turbolaser batteries and Borstel NK-7 ion cannons.

However, that leaves the other:
Dual heavy turbolaser turrets (6)
Dual heavy ion cannon turrets (2)
Quad heavy turbolasers (2)
Triple medium turbolasers (3)
Medium turbolasers (2)

If the 'Heavy' Turbolasers are equal to the Acclamator heavy guns then 10 guns are firing GT level shots


C) Equal to a Torpedo Salvo

A single photon torpedo detonated at close range will cripple a Galaxy class starship even with shields - TNG: Nth Degree
A single photon torpedo has a high probability of destroying a galaxy class starship with no shields - TNG: Q,Who

You conclude that a single light TL is equal to a torpedo salvo while these examples from TNG indicate that a single torpedo would destroy a Galaxy Class Starship ?

It would appear your conclusion indicates the opposite of what you think. A single hit from a light gun equal to a torpedo could cripple a Galaxy Class Starship with shields and likely destroy it without shields. Two direct hits will kill any ship in the Star Trek fleets.

Going through with this conclusion and putting it into the basic time frame I did:

1) 60 Guns shooting at 60 targets

2) 10 seconds to identify, track, lock, fire and hit the target

3) 6 shots to kill a Star Trek ship with a margin for 4 shots to miss

60 Seconds to destroy 60 Ships

It would be possible an ISD could destroy both fleets in an hour.

It also indicates the ISD could end the fight before the Klingons arrive

I don't subscribe to a total energy transmission paradigm: a TL hit to a nacelle will blow off and destroy the nacelle, not transfer the remaining TL energy to the rest of the ship. It's possible to disable with overwhelming firepower merely by happenstance. Yes, a primary or secondary hull hit with TL fire would probably take a ship with all hands.

I guess the question would be "how small do the chunks need to be before gunners stop shooting them?"

TNG: Cause and Effect

A collision to the E-D's engine caused her to explode violently so blowing off a nacelle could cause a Trek ship to explode on it's own.
Trek has also established that even intentional attempts at 'disabling' have caused targets to explode.

In the Undiscovered Country: The E-A takes multiple torpedo hits with shields up
In TNG: Generations: The E-D takes two direct torpedo strike to the dish with shield 'down'

Following on from the idea that a light turbolaser is equal to a Torpedo - This would imply hit would fall somewhere between these two examples. One with the shield being bypassed, the other with the shield failing. The E-A takes multiple hits and over the battle more bleed through damage is visibly being shown.
Additionally, the torpedoes also appear to be physically moving the ship from the impact.

A) Would or can the turbolaser impart a physical force like a torpedo ?
- Even a glancing impact to a shield that 'blocks' the hit would seemingly cause a Trek Ship to be knocked around. In a high density formation that could cause the ships to collide with each other.

B) Will a single MT hit to the hull of a ST ship blast through the hull like the E-A or be 'stopped' like it seems to do with the E-D ?

C) If we go with the GT level impact, is this going to 'over-penetrate' and essentially cleave a straight path through a ST ship or is it going to hit so hard the ship literally crumbles regardless of where the hit is ?
- If the former, then it is possible a ST ship would survive non-direct hits or even direct hits that miss vital areas
- If the latter, then even a through and through impact would shatter the ship without including secondary effects.

[Khaat]

I don't subscribe to a total energy transmission paradigm: a TL hit to a nacelle will blow off and destroy the nacelle, not transfer the remaining TL energy to the rest of the ship. It's possible to disable with overwhelming firepower merely by happenstance. Yes, a primary or secondary hull hit with TL fire would probably take a ship with all hands.

I guess the question would be "how small do the chunks need to be before gunners stop shooting them?"

TNG: Cause and Effect

A collision to the E-D's engine caused her to explode violently so blowing off a nacelle could cause a Trek ship to explode on it's own.
Trek has also established that even intentional attempts at 'disabling' have caused targets to explode.

We also have ST:tWoK, the Enterprise(-Nil) blows off the Reliant's port(?) warp nacelle to no catastrophic effect. ST(2009), the Enterprise drops out of warp in a debris field and takes a glancing blow to the port nacelle to no lasting effect.

Can blowing off a nacelle cause a Trek ship to explode? Yes. Does it always? No. My point wasn't "a TL won't end a Trek ship's career", but that prisoners are certainly possible, as are "merely crippled" Trek ships, even if unintended.

I'm not even sure what effect an ion cannon would have on a Trek ship - could cause catastrophic warp-core breech, could merely knock-out/shut down power systems, or blow up some control consoles full of plasma conduits.

[Lord Revan]

If we're using the Kelvin timeline the NCC-1701 *ST:beyond spoiler* Spoiler

had both of its nacelles blown of by Krell's drones and didn't blow up

.

As for Ion cannons/torps it really depends on how the "disable" works and we've not really told any details and most likely never will be. If ion weapons work by overloading the systems causing the temporary emergency shutdown it could wreck havoc on a trek ship and their fail safe systems have rather bad tendency to fail (and fail in a way that's unsafe) when most needed.

[The Romulan Republic]

Some Trek ships seem much more prone to warp core breaches than others. TOS ships didn't seem terribly vulnerable to it from what I recall. Voyager was inconsistent on this point, I think.

TNG's Galaxy class is the only one that seems to have a real reputation for frequent breaches, as far as I recall.

[Lord Revan]

Some Trek ships seem much more prone to warp core breaches than others. TOS ships didn't seem terribly vulnerable to it from what I recall. Voyager was inconsistent on this point, I think.

TNG's Galaxy class is the only one that seems to have a real reputation for frequent breaches, as far as I recall.

Even with the GCS it's not 100% consistent, with early seasons being the source of most the "don't fart at general direction of the core or it'll blow up" while in later seasons the GCS (even E-D) could take much more beating before the core showed signs of going critical.

[Captain Seafort]

A) The ISD does not have any 'light' guns and the majority are heavy turbolasers.

Are Taim & Bak XX-9 heavy turbolaser batteries light guns equal to the Acclamator light guns ?

If there are 60 batteries of them, then yes, they're these things.

What is the ISD equivalent of the heavy guns on the Acclamator ?

The heavy aft batteries are the closest, which are more like the VenStar's triple-digit teraton guns and I agree would one-shot any Trek ship beyond one-ep wonders. However, we see them firing once in all of cannon, and against a fleet of weak ships the light guns are probably more effective.

A single photon torpedo detonated at close range will cripple a Galaxy class starship even with shields - TNG: Nth Degree
A single photon torpedo has a high probability of destroying a galaxy class starship with no shields - TNG: Q,Who

GCSes have survived multiple direct hits, unshielded from PTs (Generations), cruiser-type Birds of Prey (YE), Galors (Parallels), and Keldon-class cruisers (Defiant) can survive direct hits from full spreads (the latter from QTs, although it was disabled). We've also seen countless incidents of ships taking phaser hits with little more than violent shaking, and they're not much weaker than PTs (low triple-digit kT/sec for a GCS, compared with about a Mt per PT).

My argument isn't that a Fed or Dominion fleet can beat an ISD, merely that the ISD's victory isn't going to be as quick and easy as your initial post suggested.

[Q99]

My view lines up with Seafort's- Big guns will do the job in a single shot, little guns will work but are not the 'point and erase target' method the big guns are.

[phred]

If the SD engages either fleet, size is going to be a severe disadvantage for those on the receiving end.The Galaxies and Dominion battlecruisers are going down fast. The Defiant and the little bug ships will have an advantage due to their relative agility. Some might even manage to make a break for it when they realize just how untenable the situation is.

[Q99]

Oh hey- what if the Dominion fleet just decides to suicide ram En Mass on Founder's orders?

[The Romulan Republic]

That might actually work. After all, they took damage from asteroid impacts in Empire Strikes Back.

Of course, they also might be able to shoot down a lot of the ships before they reached the SD.

[Q99]

That might actually work. After all, they took damage from asteroid impacts in Empire Strikes Back.

Of course, they also might be able to shoot down a lot of the ships before they reached the SD.

Sure, but that's why Bugs ram first and Dreadnaughts latter if needed. 'Clog their gunports with our wreckage!' and all that!

[The Romulan Republic]

That might actually work. After all, they took damage from asteroid impacts in Empire Strikes Back.

Of course, they also might be able to shoot down a lot of the ships before they reached the SD.

Sure, but that's why Bugs ram first and Dreadnaughts latter if needed. 'Clog their gunports with our wreckage!' and all that!

Taking a page from Zapp Brannigan's tactics?

[Q99]

Taking a page from Zapp Brannigan's tactics?

An underrated genius!


And if there's Founders at risk of dying if the fleet's wiped, they *will* go through with it. Not many SF sides we can say would actually willingly engage in such tactics.

[The Romulan Republic]

The Borg, if it came down to it.

The Federation is willing to ram with ships if no other means of resisting their opponent is available, but I doubt any Federation officer would be cold-blooded enough to order an entire fleet to suicide, and I wouldn't be surprised if some vessels refused such an order.

Klingons might. The glorification of death in battle is strong in their society. They have cloaks too, so a better chance of being able to close.

[Q99]

The Borg, if it came down to it.

The Federation is willing to ram with ships if no other means of resisting their opponent is available, but I doubt any Federation officer would be cold-blooded enough to order an entire fleet to suicide, and I wouldn't be surprised if some vessels refused such an order.

Klingons might. The glorification of death in battle is strong in their society. They have cloaks too, so a better chance of being able to close.

The Borg have done similar tactics against 8472, yea.

With both the Federation and Klingons I think you have a similar situation- that is to say, individual heroic sacrifices (we saw the Defiant almost do so in First Contact), but sacrificing the entire fleets aren't going to happen. They care about both their own and their comrade's lives too much, and moral is still a thing. Pretty much goes for most normal humanoid (and non-humanoid) races.

Especially as it's not like their homeworlds are under attack or anything. If they were cornered and saw no other choice, then maybe, but even then, I think most wouldn't think of it.

[texanmarauder]

just to throw my 2 cents in, after looking at canon examples of turbolaser firepower, at least the quantifiable ones, compared to their hull/armor quality, and then looking at star trek, I have no choice but to conclude that the ISD is gonna get wrecked, and badly. TBH, I have never believed the numbers in the now defunct and totally non canon ICS, and have never seen turbolasers put out anywhere near that kind of energy. on the other hand, we have seen star trek weapons wreak havoc on a planet, vaporize a hull material 21.4 times (according to star trek canon) harder than diamond, with ranges that are reserved for non conventional weapons in star wars. even their hand phasers are capable of vaporizing an average human adult. that takes at least 3Gw. even with phasers set to drill and while not at full power, the enterprise was able to drill to within a few kilometers of the core of an M-class planet. that takes thousands of terawatts, minimum. much more than what I have seen estimated on this thread.

[Batman]

Here we go again...