Ambassador Class pulled for mechanical problems?

[Tribble]

I would not consider one ship losing a battle with four warbirds a sign that Starfleet was in trouble unless they were rather small or otherwise low-end Romulan ships.

Well, at least according to "Vulcan's Heart" they were brand-new top of the line warships. And the E-C took out two of them before being destroyed. Considering the odds, it fought pretty well.

IMO the Galaxy was not a direct response to the Klingons or Romulans. If that were the case, it would have been a dedicated warship from the start rather than a multi-purpose explorer craft with civilians on board. And it would have been built much more quickly and in greater numbers, given how fast Starfleet was able to pump out new ships after encountering the Borg.

IMO the the Ambassador class, Galaxy-class (and Nebula class for that matter) are precisely the type of designs you'd expect from a peace-time fleet with an ever-shrinking budget and no one anticipating a major conflict for the foreseeable future. Rather than having large numbers of dedicated ships, Starfleet probably decided that it would be better (and cheaper) to have a fewer number of large, multipurpose ships that could be reconfigured as needed.

Of course that kind of design philosophy has its drawbacks, as they found out the hard way. Fortunately for them they managed to survive long enough to learn from that mistake and start producing large numbers of dedicated ships again.

[Sidewinder]

IMO the the Ambassador class, Galaxy-class (and Nebula class for that matter) are precisely the type of designs you'd expect from a peace-time fleet with an ever-shrinking budget and no one anticipating a major conflict for the foreseeable future. Rather than having large numbers of dedicated ships, Starfleet probably decided that it would be better (and cheaper) to have a fewer number of large, multipurpose ships that could be reconfigured as needed.

Of course that kind of design philosophy has its drawbacks, as they found out the hard way. Fortunately for them they managed to survive long enough to learn from that mistake and start producing large numbers of dedicated ships again.

Read some articles on the "Littoral Combat Ship" at CDR Salamander's blog. It's smarter for a navy to have some large, multipurpose ships, than to have large numbers of one-trick ponies that actually cost far more than they're worth. A larger ship has "room for growth," so if you need her to do something it's not designed to do, there's room to shoehorn whatever equipment and specialist personnel you need to make the ship do this thing. A small ship, like the Defiant... not so much.

[Tribble]

IMO the the Ambassador class, Galaxy-class (and Nebula class for that matter) are precisely the type of designs you'd expect from a peace-time fleet with an ever-shrinking budget and no one anticipating a major conflict for the foreseeable future. Rather than having large numbers of dedicated ships, Starfleet probably decided that it would be better (and cheaper) to have a fewer number of large, multipurpose ships that could be reconfigured as needed.

Of course that kind of design philosophy has its drawbacks, as they found out the hard way. Fortunately for them they managed to survive long enough to learn from that mistake and start producing large numbers of dedicated ships again.

Read some articles on the "Littoral Combat Ship" at CDR Salamander's blog. It's smarter for a navy to have some large, multipurpose ships, than to have large numbers of one-trick ponies that actually cost far more than they're worth. A larger ship has "room for growth," so if you need her to do something it's not designed to do, there's room to shoehorn whatever equipment and specialist personnel you need to make the ship do this thing. A small ship, like the Defiant... not so much.

Within reason. While a large multi-purpose ship in a modern navy may have a variety of roles, most of those roles still have military applications. The Galaxy-class is a multipurpose ship in the sense that many of its primary duties are decidedly non-military in nature. I don't expect the USS Wasp will be studying birds at the galapulous islands anytime soon. Or hosting a G8 summit. Or hauling fertilizer to Taiwan. Or serving as the personal helicopter pad for the ambassador of Australia. And all the while having a nursery full of children. While I'm sure the Wasp is capable of doing all of the above if absolutely necessary, it certainly wasn't designed to do so from the outset.

[Baffalo]

Within reason. While a large multi-purpose ship in a modern navy may have a variety of roles, most of those roles still have military applications. The Galaxy-class is a multipurpose ship in the sense that many of its primary duties are decidedly non-military in nature. I don't expect the USS Wasp will be studying birds at the galapulous islands anytime soon. Or hosting a G8 summit. Or hauling fertilizer to Taiwan. Or serving as the personal helicopter pad for the ambassador of Australia. And all the while having a nursery full of children. While I'm sure the Wasp is capable of doing all of the above if absolutely necessary, it certainly wasn't designed to do so from the outset.

Read some articles on the "Littoral Combat Ship" at CDR Salamander's blog. It's smarter for a navy to have some large, multipurpose ships, than to have large numbers of one-trick ponies that actually cost far more than they're worth. A larger ship has "room for growth," so if you need her to do something it's not designed to do, there's room to shoehorn whatever equipment and specialist personnel you need to make the ship do this thing. A small ship, like the Defiant... not so much.

When you set out to design something, you need to set a clear list of objectives for this particular design. In the case of the Defiant, it had one: Defense against the Borg. It was built to be small, pack good firepower, and have a small crew. They'd seen what happened to vessels like the Excelsiors, Mirandas, even what the Enterprise could do against the Borg, which is little. They needed a ship that would be easy to mass produce in large numbers for the sole purpose of defense, something that was new to them. Hence why we probably saw so few deployed, since it was a ship with exactly one purpose for existing.

Let's look at the differences between three vessels: The Galaxy, the Akira, and the Defiant classes.

Weapons:
Galaxy -
Four (4) phaser arrays on primary hull, five (5) arrays on secondary hull, two (2) on warp nacelle pylons. Maximum discharge of 10.2MW
Three (3) fixed-focus torpedo launchers, one (1) forward launcher on secondary hull, one (1) rear launcher on secondary hull. 275 torpedos.

Akira -
Two (2) dorsal phaser arrays on primary hull, two (2) ventral phaser arrays on primary hull, two (2) phaser arrays on rear arc. Maximum discharge of 10.2MW
Three (3) fixed-focus high-speed automated launchers originally built for New Orleans and Sabre class vessels with five (5) tubes per launcher. 375 torpedoes.

Defiant -
Four (4) pulse cannons in forward arc, each cannon providing more power than Type-X Phaser Emitter.
Two (2) forward torpedo launchers, two (2) aft (Refit contains two (2) forward one (1) aft). 64 torpedoes.

Crew Compliment:
Galaxy - 1012 Officers & Crew, 200 Visiting Personnel
Akira - 500 Officers & Crew
Defiant - 40 Officers & Crew

Displacement:
Galaxy - 4.5 Million Metric Tonnes w/ Cargo Capacity dependent on mission type
Akira - 3.06 Million Metric Tonnes w/Cargo Capacity of 47,254 metric tonnes
Defiant - 355,000 Metric Tonnes w/Cargo Capacity of 10,477 metric tonnes

[Sidewinder]

Problem with the Defiant class:

1) Its small crew means the death or disability of any crew members will have a greater impact on its efficiency, than the same event would on a larger ship.

2) Its small size means there's little room for food, water, and other provisions. Even assuming the ship has enough fuel for months of operations, how are you going to keep the crew alive during this time? Even assuming a replicator can transform waste products- SHIT- with 100% efficiency, a replicator needs power to operate, which further strains the ship's fuel supplies.

3) In theory, the ship's small size means it can be built in many shipyards, and many can be built in the same time it takes to build an Ambassador class ship. In practice, it's likely very few shipyards have the ability to build components to the necessary quality- remember the following line:

The vessel was overpowered and over-gunned for a ship of its size - so much so that the Defiant nearly shook itself apart when the engines were tested at full power.

Any savings in materials, will be offset by the time-consuming and costly quality control measures necessary to prevent the ships from shaking themselves apart.

The Defiant is not a battleship, it's a torpedo boat/monitor hybrid. Such ships have their uses, but these uses are too limited for Starfleet's consideration.

[Prometheus Unbound]

Well the Valiant managed to survive for 6 (or was it 9?) months behind enemy lines and there weren't talks of energy shortages etc.

[Tribble]

I was going continue the debate to go into a detailed analysis as the why the Defaint-class does exceptionally well for a warship, but that's rather off tangent to the OP's question.

IMO the Ambassador-class was not pulled for mechanical problems. It was built similarly to the Galaxy-class, and was a warship/civilian/cargo/exploration hybrid. However, unlike the Galaxy-class there were never any real existential crises which forced Starfleet into mass-producing it, and by the time such crises showed up it was long obsolete.

IMO such a fate would have befallen the Galaxy-class too - if you follow the TNG TM there were only supposed to be 6 in existence at any one time, with another 6 hulls in storage whenever needed. However, the Romulans, Borg and Dominion changed Starfleet's plans, and they ended up building more of them (or at the very least rapidly finishing the 6 hulls which had been left in storage and building replacements to the Yamato, E-D and Odyssey).

[biostem]

With the exception of the Dominion war in DS9, we never really see much in the way of Starfleet actually going into full starship production.

Through most of TNG, it seems that if a ship was "good enough", they just kept it in service.

I'm surprised that we never saw something a little bigger than a defiant - like maybe a Nova, that was geared toward combat.

[Baffalo]

With the exception of the Dominion war in DS9, we never really see much in the way of Starfleet actually going into full starship production.

Through most of TNG, it seems that if a ship was "good enough", they just kept it in service.

I'm surprised that we never saw something a little bigger than a defiant - like maybe a Nova, that was geared toward combat.

Didn't they develop the Sabre for that role?

Yeah the Sabre was essentially built to be a frigate/destroyer with more flexibility than the Defiant.

[Tribble]

With the exception of the Dominion war in DS9, we never really see much in the way of Starfleet actually going into full starship production.

Through most of TNG, it seems that if a ship was "good enough", they just kept it in service.

I'm surprised that we never saw something a little bigger than a defiant - like maybe a Nova, that was geared toward combat.

I think the Prometheus class was specifically geared towards combat as well. It seemed pretty capable in "Message in a Bottle," and we briefly saw one in "Endgame" as well. It's possible it had just entered main-stream production when Voyager returned.

And speaking of production, the Memory Alpha uses this pic for Utopia Planitia (which is a screen shot from Voy "Relativity"):



Is it just me, or is that an Excelsior-class being constructed in the center-left? I suppose it could in the process of repairs/upgrading, but my understanding was that Utopia Planitia was specifically geared towards construction, while other stations like McKinley station handled the repairs/upgrading.

Is there any evidence that the Excelsior-class had actually ceased being produced? The Klingons used basic hull shapes for centuries, is it possible that the Feds may have decided to do the same in this case?

[Tribble]

And just for the record, I don't see the Defiant as a failure. Sure, it's a small ship, but I don't see that as being a disadvantage for the role it ended up playing. Having a bigger crew does not necessarily mean greater survivability - we've seen many starships get crippled/destroyed by hits which the Defiant shrugged off, and perhaps just as importantly due to its small size and maneuverability it managed to avoid a lot of hits in the first place. Having a crew of 500+ isn't much better if they all get killed in the opening salvo.

As a pure combat vessel it does its job remarkably well and manages to have an almost perfect balance of speed, maneuverability, survivability and firepower. Not to mention that it has enough endurance to operate sevral months behind enemy lines with no support. While I don't think it should be the only ship that Starfleet produces, I don't see the problem with them having a ship which is specially designed to blow other ships apart while also being able to dodge enemy fire and survive any hits that do manage to connect. Apart from the fact that it kinda goes against Gene Roddenbery's vision, of course.

By my calculations besides the Defiant itself we saw 5-7 other Defiant class ships between DS9 and Voyager so I think it's safe to presume that Starfleet decided that it was worth building them.

And sorry for the double post btw. I wish I could merge these things myself, sometimes my thoughts come around pretty randomly and spaced-apart.

[The Romulan Republic]

Defiants seem perfectly adequate for combat except for the fact that they seem relatively rare. Where you'd need a bigger ship is long range exploration and large scale transportation (though I suppose that could be done with a large number of small ships).

[Simon_Jester]

The Defiant is not a battleship, it's a torpedo boat/monitor hybrid. Such ships have their uses, but these uses are too limited for Starfleet's consideration.

Even when you're specifically designing them to counter the threat of gigantic Borg cubs barging into the middle of your space?

I would think that a short to medium range attack ship would be exactly what you'd want in that case.

[Baffalo]

Is it just me, or is that an Excelsior-class being constructed in the center-left? I suppose it could in the process of repairs/upgrading, but my understanding was that Utopia Planitia was specifically geared towards construction, while other stations like McKinley station handled the repairs/upgrading.

Is there any evidence that the Excelsior-class had actually ceased being produced? The Klingons used basic hull shapes for centuries, is it possible that the Feds may have decided to do the same in this case?

From this picture:


We can see the Enterprise-E over Earth undergoing repairs, which makes it clear that despite the extensive damage, she was taken to Earth, not the Utopia Planetia. This would seem to indicate that Excelsior is under construction.

[Thanas]

Honestly, it might just be a question of using the yard while it has a bit of downtime in ship production due to resources not arriving/being delayed.

[Sidewinder]

The Defiant is not a battleship, it's a torpedo boat/monitor hybrid. Such ships have their uses, but these uses are too limited for Starfleet's consideration.

Even when you're specifically designing them to counter the threat of gigantic Borg cubs barging into the middle of your space?

I would think that a short to medium range attack ship would be exactly what you'd want in that case.

The Federation spans a LARGE area of space. For this reason, Starfleet's vessels need long range and great endurance to protect it. A Defiant-sized vessel is fine for protecting a star system- again, comparing her to the torpedo boat or a monitor, which aren't expected to travel far from its dock- but to protect multiple star systems, you need multiple vessels, and multiple docks to support these vessels.

This is where the Defiant, and the Littoral Combat Ship before it, fails: It's too expensive to build in the quantities needed, and too small to provide the qualities- specifically, the range and the endurance- needed.

[Thanas]

Where does this "endurance" stuff come from with regards to the defiant? It did just fine behind enemy lines. And if you cut down creature comforts to say, early 20th century Navies, you can stretch that endurance very far.

[Borgholio]

A modern nuclear submarine can stay deployed for months, limited only by food. Energy, water and air are practically infinite. A ship the size of the Defiant with fewer crew than a sub should be able to go for a lot longer even if they didn't have replicators and were just working on stored food supplies.

[Elheru Aran]

The Federation isn't all *that* big, either. Starfleet seems to be capable enough of going from one end to the other without too much issue. There are starbases and space stations scattered here and there such as DS9 that can serve as local bases for other craft. The Defiant and other similar ships are not intended for long-range exploration or voyages; they're warships that are designed around an expectation of regular basing and resupply.

[bilateralrope]

The Federation spans a LARGE area of space. For this reason, Starfleet's vessels need long range and great endurance to protect it. A Defiant-sized vessel is fine for protecting a star system- again, comparing her to the torpedo boat or a monitor, which aren't expected to travel far from its dock- but to protect multiple star systems, you need multiple vessels, and multiple docks to support these vessels.

This is where the Defiant, and the Littoral Combat Ship before it, fails: It's too expensive to build in the quantities needed, and too small to provide the qualities- specifically, the range and the endurance- needed.

The Defiant wasn't intended to protect the Federation against general threats. It was designed to protect the Federation against the Borg. Both times the Borg attacked they just went straight for Earth. A ship that can only defend Earth would work against the Borg, because they want to hit Earth first. It doesn't need to be able to defend other systems.

Not that the Defiant had any problems defending other systems. There are clearly enough places where it can refuel that it can operate throughout the Federation.

[Tribble]

Again, the Valiant operated for several months behind enemy lines without any support, and was on a mission to circumnavigate the Federation before the war broke out. And with regards to the Borg, the Defiant was deployed with the initial fleet that intercepted the Borg Cube in the Typhoon sector (which was at the edge of Federation territory) and fought a running battle all the way to Earth. Range really isn't an issue for the Defiant considering the role it plays.

[Prometheus Unbound]

Is it just me, or is that an Excelsior-class being constructed in the center-left? I suppose it could in the process of repairs/upgrading, but my understanding was that Utopia Planitia was specifically geared towards construction, while other stations like McKinley station handled the repairs/upgrading.

Is there any evidence that the Excelsior-class had actually ceased being produced? The Klingons used basic hull shapes for centuries, is it possible that the Feds may have decided to do the same in this case?

From this picture:


We can see the Enterprise-E over Earth undergoing repairs, which makes it clear that despite the extensive damage, she was taken to Earth, not the Utopia Planetia. This would seem to indicate that Excelsior is under construction.

No it wouldn't. It would indicate that an excelsior refit (ds9 Homefront et al) was at utopia p for reasons.

Nothing more.

[Crazedwraith]

Out of interest: How can you tell that's the E-B/Lakota type Excelsior? I thought all the CGI Excelsiors were the original type. And the main difference is the engineering section not the saucer visible in the pic.

Anyway, all the pic shows is an Excelsior was present. It could be a refit, it could be a new built. There is zero hard evidence one way or the other. I think may be what Prometheus Unbound was meaning, but his references to refits threw me.

But Tribble does have a point that UP is usually mentioned in relation to construction not refits. Most times we see say Enterprise fresh from refit she's been in an earth based slip.

[Tsyroc]

Out of interest: How can you tell that's the E-B/Lakota type Excelsior? I thought all the CGI Excelsiors were the original type. And the main difference is the engineering section not the saucer visible in the pic.

Anyway, all the pic shows is an Excelsior was present. It could be a refit, it could be a new built. There is zero hard evidence one way or the other. I think may be what Prometheus Unbound was meaning, but his references to refits threw me.

But Tribble does have a point that UP is usually mentioned in relation to construction not refits. Most times we see say Enterprise fresh from refit she's been in an earth based slip.

The E-B/Lacota Excelsiors have a very bulbous add on to the engineering section. If they were modern warships meant to sail on the sea I would say that the upgrade added a giant armor belt to protect the ship from torpedoes.

http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/scans ... bottom.jpg

[montypython]

Refit Excelsiors also have some modified parts on the Saucer and warp nacelles too.