Star Trek vs Star Wars physical ship strength

[LastShadow]

Before i start if this topic was covered i'm sorry, i haven't read through all the Star Trek VS Star Wars stuff. So if so bounce the thread i'll recover.

So i was thinking about this while binge watching a variety of ST: TNG, ST: DS9 and ST: Voyager. Star Trek ships even the Hero ships with all their Plot armor are fairly fragile vessels. This is seen frequently on screen.

So i would personally like to open a discussion, on the simple nature of the physical durability of the various ships of the line in each universe. I will also posit that certain classes of ships could be devastating to each other, all else being equal.
And by all else being Equal i mean weapons strengths. shield strengths, for the purpose of these discussions turbolasers and Phasers do the same amount of theoretical damage.

So on to what we see on screen, in star trek, even when the shields are full hits can blow out conduits, blow out consoles, and cause overall havoc, on a fully shielded ship. Once unshielded most ships get wrecked rather quickly, seen quite often in DS 9 during the dominion war.

Whereas most of the larger ships of the line in star wars get beaten like a rented gong on the regular and keep on trucking.

for this discussion, Hero ships will be excluded, so Enterprise (all) are out but the Galaxy class is in, so ships like the yamato and odyssey are cool as they arent "main character" ships. Likewise Rouge squadron, the Falcon and character ships for Star wars are also out. but Non-Canon ships can be included, from both Star Wars and Star Trek novels, and games. Also all support vessels present on a ship can be used tactics wise. So Star destroyers can field their star fighter compliment, BUT a Star trel captain can use their shuttles to compensate and for small ship combat, and to deal with fighters.

I thought it might be fun, i could be horribly wrong, this may have been done before.

So what ships would stand a chance against each other? Could a defiant class take on a star destroyer? Would its speed give it the edge? Could the Odyssey class from STO obliterate a Venator class star destroyer? How long would a Miranda class last against an Acclamator class Star cruiser?

Now let me be clear on this, Shields are equl strengths, UNLESS the ship has a multishield system in place, in which case that difference can be used, armaments are equal in power, but amount of physical weapons can and will vary by class, so use sources if you would like.

Id like to try and have fun with this, ill post mine later.

[Simon_Jester]

http://stardestroyer.net/Empire/Essays/FiveMinutes.html

There's your quick summary of the odds. Basically, Star Trek's shipboard weapons are much, much less powerful than Star Wars' weapons. Their engines are slower, both in sublight and faster than light travel. Star Trek ships, which are fairly vulnerable to Star Trek weapons, would be hideously vulnerable to Star Wars weapons. Star Wars ships, which are moderately resistant to Star Wars weapons, would be almost totally immune to Star Trek weapons.

It's silly to say "shields are equal strengths, armaments are equal in power" without one heck of a good justification. You didn't communicate your justification very clearly.

IF I understand your motives correctly, what you're really trying to get at is:

How do ships from these settings compare just in terms of the physical durability of their hulls?

In answer to that question... For one, Star Wars ships tend to be physically a lot bigger. Unlike Star Trek ships, they don't mount their engines in large external pods which are easily damaged. Those two factors strongly suggest that the Star Wars ships would win, if firepower and shielding were reduced to equal levels.

[I will note that the relatively flimsy engines-in-pods designs used in Star Trek seem to be a requirement of their setting; they can't help it and it's not bad engineering for them to build ships that way, since if they didn't, said ships wouldn't work at all]

[Eternal_Freedom]

Honestly, even if one phaser bank was exactly equal to one turbolaser, and shields were proportionally the same strength (relative to their guns so say the shields can take x full salvos before collapsing), a Star Destroyer mounts many, many more guns, carries many more small craft, is faster in sublight and at FTL speeds, have a physically more robust design (as Simon said, no exposed engine pods) and there are many, many more of them, backed up by an infrastructure designed to build, service and support that many ships.

To use your examples:

Defiant vs ISD ends in the Defiant getting shot to pieces by the much larger number of guns. The ship may be fast and nimble by ST standards but its still a ~150m long target, and ISD guns are seen to hit the Falcon (which is smaller than the Defiant) so the ST ship gets killed.

Odyssey vs Venator: Again, its a kill, since the Venator has a huge fighter compliment and four heavy missile launchers (which given their sheer size in the ICS should be much more powerful than a phtoton or quantum torpedo. Multiple turbolaser turrets that can hit targets at 10 light-minute ranges as per the ICS or can traverse in 3 seconds for close-in fighting will shoot the Odysey to pieces.

Miranda versus Acclamator: Same thing. Bigger ship, more guns so proportionally more powerful.

What you've basically done is said "ok, let's compare HMS Dreadnought (which had 10 12" guns, firing 8 on a broadside) with HMS Agincourt (which had 14 12" guns, firing all 14 on a broadside)," the guns are the same power (ignoring minor differences in barrel length and shell weights) but Agincourt is almost certainly going to win a gunnery duel, purely due to more guns (not to mention armour, speed etc).

[Simon_Jester]

Well, it's a bit more complicated than that when comparing World War I dreadnoughts*. But the basic point is well made; the Star Wars ships referenced here are all larger, equipped with more numerous weapons and parasite craft, and are from an engineering standpoint more likely to survive a moderate amount of enemy fire.

*(for instance, Agincourt had so many turrets, and so few watertight compartments that the excessive number of holes in the decks required to fit all the turrets weakened the ship's structure, and likewise the Brazilians had skimped on armor plating to make room for all those heavy guns).

[Zeropoint]

There's also the fact that Star Trek ships are canonically unable to withstand using their own FTL drive without reinforcement from the "structural integrity fields". I suppose, though, that this could simply mean that Trek warp drive places much, much greater stress on the hull than Wars hyperdrive.

[WATCH-MAN]

There's also the fact that Star Trek ships are canonically unable to withstand using their own FTL drive without reinforcement from the "structural integrity fields". I suppose, though, that this could simply mean that Trek warp drive places much, much greater stress on the hull than Wars hyperdrive.

There is such a fact?

Do you have evidence for this claim - or - to be more precise - can you elaborate under which circumstances the integrity of the hull of a Star Trek ship was compromised without reinforcement from the "structural integrity fields".

I mean stress on the hull shouldn't be caused while a ship is simply flying with a constant velocity - even if that velocity is FTL - in vacuum. Insofar it is important to know, under what circumstances exactly the hull needs reinforcement from the "structural integrity fields".

[Eternal_Freedom]

Well, it's a bit more complicated than that when comparing World War I dreadnoughts*. But the basic point is well made; the Star Wars ships referenced here are all larger, equipped with more numerous weapons and parasite craft, and are from an engineering standpoint more likely to survive a moderate amount of enemy fire.

*(for instance, Agincourt had so many turrets, and so few watertight compartments that the excessive number of holes in the decks required to fit all the turrets weakened the ship's structure, and likewise the Brazilians had skimped on armor plating to make room for all those heavy guns).

Oh I know it's more of a mess than the over-simplification suggests, but it's the closest analogy I can come up with.

[Eternal_Freedom]

There's also the fact that Star Trek ships are canonically unable to withstand using their own FTL drive without reinforcement from the "structural integrity fields". I suppose, though, that this could simply mean that Trek warp drive places much, much greater stress on the hull than Wars hyperdrive.

There is such a fact?

Do you have evidence for this claim - or - to be more precise - can you elaborate under which circumstances the integrity of the hull of a Star Trek ship was compromised without reinforcement from the "structural integrity fields".

I mean stress on the hull shouldn't be caused while a ship is simply flying with a constant velocity - even if that velocity is FTL - in vacuum. Insofar it is important to know, under what circumstances exactly the hull needs reinforcement from the "structural integrity fields".

Quoting from Memory Alpha, the Article on structural integrity fields:

"In order to stop the USS Defiant from being torn to pieces by exceeding warp nine in 2374, Chief Miles O'Brien took power from the phaser reserves to strengthen the starship's structural integrity field. (DS9: "The Sound of Her Voice")

In an alternate timeline in 2374, the USS Voyager was forced to engage warp drive while the structural integrity field was still down, in order to escape the Krenim weapon ship. As a result, many of the outer hull plates were torn from the ship. (VOY: "Year of Hell")

The warp coils of an Intrepid-class starship would rupture within a short time if the structural integrity field around them collapsed. (VOY: "One")"

Beyond that, the mere fact that such systems exist (across every known spacefaring culture in ST AFAIK) suggests they are vitally important in some way.

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah. To be fair, warp drive explicitly distorts space itself, so it's not entirely surprising that ships are vulnerable to being damaged by exposure to that space-warping effect unless reinforced by force fields.

Hyperspace travel seems to move through some other parallel space-time or a dimension unknown to the normal sidereal universe... so as noted, it may well not cause such massive disruption. Alternatively, Star Wars ships may well be using their own force fields to withstand the consequences of hyperspace travel.

There are some references supporting that. For example, this guy, who bought a used spaceship, fired up the hyperdrive for a two hour trip, and emerged to learn that it was two hundred years later. Although at least his ship didn't get shredded.

[biostem]

In TFA, the Millennium Falcon crash lands on a planet at near lightspeed, (only exited Hyperspace a split second before), and not only survives, but is able to take off a short time later without extensive repairs and no crew losses. When Voyager was using a Quantum Slipstream drive, they were able to disengage it in close proximity to a planet, but crashed, losing all hands.

[Batman]

Um-the Falcon was nowhere near lightspeed when she crashed in TFA. I doubt she was even supersonic. She came out of what in Wars is commonly called lightspeed (a synonym for hyperspace travel) but her observed speed was way below that.

[biostem]

Um-the Falcon was nowhere near lightspeed when she crashed in TFA. I doubt she was even supersonic. She came out of what in Wars is commonly called lightspeed (a synonym for hyperspace travel) but her observed speed was way below that.

Even accepting that, the crash of the saucer section of the E-D in Generations resulted in a lot more damage than the Falcon...

[Simon_Jester]

Um-the Falcon was nowhere near lightspeed when she crashed in TFA. I doubt she was even supersonic. She came out of what in Wars is commonly called lightspeed (a synonym for hyperspace travel) but her observed speed was way below that.

Even accepting that, the crash of the saucer section of the E-D in Generations resulted in a lot more damage than the Falcon...

The Enterprise saucer section is also vastly larger than the Falcon. This is a major issue because of, among other things, the square-cube law. The ground pressure of a giant starship saucer that's dozens of decks high is greater than that of a tramp freighter designed to land on random dirt airfields and helipads and shit.

For example, the Falcon is light enough that if she slams into several feet of snow, the snow can meaningfully cushion the impact. The Enterprise-D... isn't.

You might well see very similar results if you just built scale models of each ship out of some uniform structural material (say, 3" steel plates) and dropped them. The Falcon model might well hit the ground more or less intact, while the greater weight and leverage exerted on parts of the Enterprise-D's hull would tear it to shreds.

[Channel72]

Yeah. To be fair, warp drive explicitly distorts space itself, so it's not entirely surprising that ships are vulnerable to being damaged by exposure to that space-warping effect unless reinforced by force fields.

This has always been a point of confusion for me: it's easy to think of a Star Trek warp drive as essentially an Alcubierre Drive which contracts and expands space-time. Except throughout the show, it's never really described like that - in fact, the Star Trek warp drive relies on the existence of "subspace" - which sounds like something more analogous to "hyperspace" from Star Wars, i.e. the ship slips into a parallel space-time/dimension. Despite the word "warp", I don't think Star Trek warp engines are anything like Alcubierre Drives which expand/contract space-time. They are in fact much more conceptually closer to Star Wars hyperdrives which require the existence of a fictional parallel space-time.

[Simon_Jester]

The ships definitely remain inside the same 4D space-time as the stars and planets around them in Star Trek, though. You can explicitly see objects outside the ship at warp, seamlessly track objects outside the warp bubble while at warp, and so on. They may be relying on subspace or an interaction with it, but the ship is definitely within our space, and there are a number of incidents which are best explained if the warp drive actually does create a warping of space.

Maybe the warping isn't a straight-up Alcubierre drive- note that The Next Generation had already ended, with ten seasons of Star Trek being recorded, before Alcubierre's papers were published. That doesn't mean warp drive isn't in some sense "warping" things.

Whereas ships in Star Wars... well, there's much more ambiguous evidence that they're traveling in the same continuum as we are. Certainly there's interaction between our continuum and the place Star Wars ships zip around in, but that's not the same thing.

[Batman]

The way I understand it Trek Warp drive somehow creates a bubble of 'seperate' realspace around the ship by somehow using subspace, thus enabling the 'bubble' to move FTL while the ship in it doesn't actually actually move at all relative to it's surrounding spacetime.

[FedRebel]

So on to what we see on screen, in star trek, even when the shields are full hits can blow out conduits, blow out consoles, and cause overall havoc, on a fully shielded ship. Once unshielded most ships get wrecked rather quickly, seen quite often in DS 9 during the dominion war.

Especially in the TNG era Federation ships require a structural integrity field, the GCS in particular would literally fall apart without the SIF

Whereas most of the larger ships of the line in star wars get beaten like a rented gong on the regular and keep on trucking.

Those ships have the advantage of being purebred warships, defenses are expected to be dulled in the heat of battle and the ship has to be able to survive.

Trek, combat is seen as a last resort, ships are built to maximize economy for exploration and patrol duties.

Now let me be clear on this, Shields are equl strengths, UNLESS the ship has a multishield system in place, in which case that difference can be used, armaments are equal in power, but amount of physical weapons can and will vary by class, so use sources if you would like.

Id like to try and have fun with this, ill post mine later.

Humoring a tech parity, Trek vessels are far thinner skinned than their Wars counterparts, on top of that Wars ships can generate larger volumes of fire (Phaser = Turbolaser, 10 banks, vs. 60 batteries.) In balanced engagements a Wars ship would breach the Trek ship's shield dissipation peak in relative short order..solely from volume of fire (again yields are equal, number of batteries disproportionately in favor of Wars.)

Best pairing for comparison would be a Galaxy and an Imperator, in broad strokes both ships have similar missions in mind, being capable of operating away from support for extended periods, being the typical first responders to 'emergencies' and military engagements, etc. Of course the Galaxy is cataloged as a Dreadnought/Battleship, while the Imperator is a Destroyer (The Executor is the Dreadnought/Battleship.) Balancing the playing field, we're pitting two very different civilizations together, each developing under drastically different threat environments, with Wars being far more military inclined.

[biostem]

There are a few references in Star Wars to "Switch shields to double-front", so at least on some starfighters, multi-layered shields are built-in.

That being said, while I can accept the fact that Federation ships are not purpose-built for combat, how do you explain the similar level of durability found in Klingon or Cardassian vessels? Surely those *do* qualify as warships...

[Lord Revan]

I dunno know about the cardies but with klingons it could emphasis towards firepower over durability, since cuturally a klingon warrior doesn't retreat (even though they do in reality) the ship design is made to encourage agressiveness over a more consertive battle strategy (basically either you kill the enemy with your first attack or it's stovokor for you). Granted this speculation as nothing was stated in canon.

[LastShadow]

Cardassian and Klingon ships are at the very least slightly more durable, along with romulan war vessels. But not too much more, once the shields are down they are still fairly weakly armored. Otherwise the federation never would have gotten anywhere against them. Plus the cardassians, at least on screen only have the one damn phaser bank.

[Simon_Jester]

True, although if so, then that must be one hell of a phaser bank given that the Cardassians can hold their own against the Federation.

[Captain Seafort]

True, although if so, then that must be one hell of a phaser bank given that the Cardassians can hold their own against the Federation.

Hardly. The E-D took a shot or two from a Galor's main weapon with no shields and came away with minor damage. The Phoenix later did the same after they were given its prefix codes.

[Simon_Jester]

Which begs the question, how were the Cardassians ever a threat to the Federation at all?

I mean, not even the pre-TNG Federation would have signed an embarrassing cease-fire to the Cardassians if they were so laughably primitive that their ships routinely don't pose a threat even when doing their aggressive best.

[Elheru Aran]

Presumably the E-D, as Federation flagship, has stronger shields than the norm? Or somewhere between TNG and DS9, the Galors got upgraded a bit (more likely).

[Captain Seafort]

Or the Cardies are significantly better on the ground than they are in space, and the Feds lack the will or the capacity to root them out.