Carriers in Star Trek

[Lord Revan]

Given how similar the NX-class hullform was to the Akira-class, it's entirely possible that it was a 26th-century ship with a similar aesthetic to the 24th-century Prometheus-class.

it's possible, hell considering the fight it might actually be a prommie from the 24th or early 25th century temporally displaced to the 26th-century seeing as the sphere builders have access to temporal technology seing as they did things in the 22nd century in response to their defeat in the 26th.

[Terralthra]

Something that I think is being missed here is that BabelHuber is arguing that the (I'm going to say) heavy cruiser, if not a straight up battleship, Galaxy-class shouldn't be used as the workhorse "do all the missions" multi-role backstop of Starfleet. And he's more or less right, because...it isn't. Galaxy-class ships are explicitly the flagship, fuckoff-expensive, tough, omnicompetent, heavily-armed premier ship of the Federation, used in missions of particular importance: transporting diplomatic envoys into potentially dangerous situations (any number, but we'll go with "Code of Honor"); investigating potentially dangerous negative space wedgies, which may involve transporting mission-critical specialists (let's go with my favorite, "TIn Man"); showing the flag in incipient or actual combat zones ("Redemption I/II", among others).

The workhorse of the 2360s Starfleet is not the comparatively rare Galaxy, it's made up primarily of of Nebula-, Miranda-, Ambassador-, and Excelsior-class ships. We think of Galaxy-class as the workhorse because that's our hero ship, but the vast majority of times we see other ships, they're the above-named classes, at least in TNG (and to a large extent DS9 as well). We only see two Galaxy-class in the entire TNG run: Enterprise and Yamato. We see, I think, three more named in DS9: Venture, Odyssey, and Galaxy, and one more named in Voyager, the Challenger.

Want to try and list all the named cruisers and frigates in the four classes named above? It'll take you a long damn while. The Ambassador are older versions of the fuckoff battleship by most indications, but the Miranda and Excelsior have apparently gone under redesign and refit, and are still under new construction (cf. the fleet from "Redemption II").

It's even pointed out in-universe of the Sovereign, the 2370s new model of big badass omnicompetent battleship:

Cmdr. William Riker: We finished our first sensor sweep of the neutral zone.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: Oh, fascinating. Twenty particles of space dust per cubic meter, 52 ultraviolet radiation spikes, and a class-2 comet. Well, this is certainly worthy of our attention.
Cmdr. William Riker: Captain, why are we out here chasing comets?

Clearly, both Riker and Picard are in agreement that the Sovereign-class Enterprise is wasted conducting routine stellar cartography.

I will, however, point out that the four smaller classes I named are still, by and large, multi-role. Defiant-class ships are never the backbone of the fleet in the same way, probably because of their specialization. It's clear that barring emergencies, Galaxy-class ships aren't sent on routine or podunk missions. We see them only when they get massively complicated or hazardous because, again, Enterprise is a hero ship. We see the exciting missions.

[Lord Revan]

I suspect the routine stellar cartography updates and standard patrols are mostly likely done with the workhorse ship classes, while Galaxies are used for frontier exploration and other high value and potentially dangerous missions, so some of these missions might end being routine (everything can't be exiting after all) but Starfleet doesn't know before they explore the region so it's better to send the best ship they got for the task.

That said the key word here is "high value" (or more correctly "potential high value") so these mission are hardly considered trivial (unlike the neutral zone scanning in First Contact which was about as routine and trivial as you can get) as they carry great potential risk as well as great potential value.

[Formless]

Well, we do see in ENT that the Prometheus class is still active in the 26th century, so apparently the design was very successful.

It is very doubtful that a design could be so successful that it would still be a front line or even second line ship after that much elapsed time, unless technological progress halted completely at some point not long after it was built. That in turn is unlikely since some of the Voyager era powers had much more powerful ships then Federation spec, without relying on Borg tech to simply repair the ships rapidly in combat. Borg tech seems to have had some fundamental vulnerabilities.

A far more likely explanation is that the ship was very useful as a freakish testbed ship, which it appeared to be in the first place, following the likes of many historical examples, and so pondered along constantly testing new systems and equipment.

The scene from Azati Prime that takes place in the 26'th century is... weird. The Prometheus isn't the only 24'th century vessel to show up there-- in fact all of the Federation ships we saw were reuses of previous CG models, except the Enterprise J. OOU, we know that the episode was somewhat rushed because according to the designers of the Enterprise J they only knew that she was even a part of the episode about a day in advance, hence why we only know what her exterior is from a display console on the set (Archer and Daniels are on the J, so that's why its there). Besides the Prometheus, we also see the Nova class and... the Dauntless class? Which is bizarre, because the Dauntless was literally a fiction cooked up by an angry alien in the Delta quadrant with very advanced technology (including the first appearance of the Quantum Slipstream drive in the show) who blamed Voyager for the assimilation of his species. I guess at some point Starfleet looked through Voyager's logs and decided to make that fiction a reality! Eh, maybe the alien who created it gave it an optimal geometry for the Quantum Slipstream or something. Who knows.

Its quite possible that the Prometheus and Nova classes weren't literally present at the battle (especially given the environmental effects the screenwriters applied helped obscure a lot of the details), but that the ships were developments of those spaceframes intended to keep up with the times while keeping aspects that worked for the older designs intact. Much like the Miranda seems to have been based on the long obsolete Soyuz class; or how no matter what the century, the Klingons seem to stick with variations of the Bird of Prey (also something evidenced by ENT).

We certainly can't appeal to technological stasis, though, because the Enterprise J was clearly not only a new class, but all accounts say she was a massive class of ship likely comparable in size to some Star Wars vessels. The cinematography helps indicate this as its so big it doesn't appear to be moving relative to the other ships Archer sees, although we can't measure its size from the inside of course. Out of universe, the designers say they were thinking of her being the "Universe" class, designed to explore other galaxies (I assume Starfleet finally figured out transwarp or Quantum Slipstream then), and that it was big enough to have parks for recreation instead of holodecks, site to site transporters and roadways for in-ship transit, and no conventional bridge anymore (they speculated on people using their brainwaves to control the thing... a very unintentionally Borg-like idea). If all this is true, then the 26'th century shipmakers must have some awesome facilities and technology at hand to say the least. No wonder the Sphere builders lost.

[Prometheus Unbound]

Cmdr. William Riker: Captain, why are we out here chasing comets?

Clearly, both Riker and Picard are in agreement that the Sovereign-class Enterprise is wasted conducting routine stellar cartography.

In the middle of a Borg Attack...

In Insurrection, Picard is wanting to do archaeological expeditions and is annoyed he's being diverted...

[NeoGoomba]

I can easily picture a setup within Starfleet of "Homeland" fleets and "Frontier" fleets. Oberths being the "homefront" science fleet dealing with phenomena within Starfleet's borders. The heavier tonnage/greater endurance ships like Galaxies, Nebulas, and Ambassadors being the bulk of the "frontier" fleets, with some heavily specialized Oberths for specific missions. The "frontier" fleets would be able to operate in greater capacity in deep space, far from Starbase support. Plus they would be a superior rapid reaction force for any colony troubles (as the Enterprise was shown to be time and time again) along the edges of the Federation.

Both fleets would no doubt be augmented with Excelsiors and Mirandas because, until the Dominion War, those bastards just wouldn't die.

[Lord Revan]

I can easily picture a setup within Starfleet of "Homeland" fleets and "Frontier" fleets. Oberths being the "homefront" science fleet dealing with phenomena within Starfleet's borders. The heavier tonnage/greater endurance ships like Galaxies, Nebulas, and Ambassadors being the bulk of the "frontier" fleets, with some heavily specialized Oberths for specific missions. The "frontier" fleets would be able to operate in greater capacity in deep space, far from Starbase support. Plus they would be a superior rapid reaction force for any colony troubles (as the Enterprise was shown to be time and time again) along the edges of the Federation.

Both fleets would no doubt be augmented with Excelsiors and Mirandas because, until the Dominion War, those bastards just wouldn't die.

Tbh I wouldn't find it odd that there was large Mirandas and Excelsiors that built or nearly so when praxis happend due to the hostilities with the klingons and the romulans so when Praxis and later the first Khitomer accords happend Starfleet would start to slowly replace the older models like the connies so the Excelsior-class and the Miranda-class would stay and we know that there's at least 1 Excelsior variant(E-B type), and at least 2 Miranda variants/diretives.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Except, NeoGoomba, there was at least one instance of an Oberth operating on the frontier, that being the Grissom from Star Trek III.

[Borgholio]

Was planet Genesis on the frontier? It wasn't that far away from a totally undefended science lab (Regula 1)

[Eternal_Freedom]

Yeah pretty sure Genesis wasn't on the frontier. The E-Nil was closest to it on a short training cruise from Earth, so it can't be that far out. Plus I suspect that "survey new planet we just accidentally made" would fall under the "using highly specialised Oberths for certain missions" NeoGoomba mentioned.

[NeoGoomba]

Except, NeoGoomba, there was at least one instance of an Oberth operating on the frontier, that being the Grissom from Star Trek III.

Indeed. And as I said, specially modified Oberths would be sent to the frontier for specific missions. But this may be an apples to oranges comparison. At the time of Star Trek III we can probably assume that an Oberth was a top of the line (or near enough) science vessel. That they are still used in that capacity during TNG+ shows that they are a reliable spaceframe for the power of SCIENCE.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Yeah pretty sure Genesis wasn't on the frontier. The E-Nil was closest to it on a short training cruise from Earth, so it can't be that far out. Plus I suspect that "survey new planet we just accidentally made" would fall under the "using highly specialised Oberths for certain missions" NeoGoomba mentioned.

Actually, that makes sense. Not even the Feds are dumb enough to stick the Project Genesis team way the hell out on the frontier.

[SilverDragonRed]

Actually, that makes sense. Not even the Feds are dumb enough to stick the Project Genesis team way the hell out on the frontier.

No, that would be the Systems Alliance from Mass Effect who are stupid enough to do that.

[Crazedwraith]

Actually, that makes sense. Not even the Feds are dumb enough to stick the Project Genesis team way the hell out on the frontier.

No, that would be the Systems Alliance from Mass Effect who are stupid enough to do that.

Can't remember any Systems Alliance bases doing that. plenty of Cereberus but they were an illegal organisation.

[SilverDragonRed]

ME: Revelations novel. The SA had a base for conducting 'illegal' AI research in the middle of the Attican Traverse while it was contested ground with the Batarians. 12 scientists guarded by 15 people; it was considered 'heavily defended'.

[NeoGoomba]

Ugh I've stayed away from any Mass Effect novels for reasons like that. I got burned enough on the Halo stuff haha

[U.P. Cinnabar]

ME: Revelations novel. The SA had a base for conducting 'illegal' AI research in the middle of the Attican Traverse while it was contested ground with the Batarians. 12 scientists guarded by 15 people; it was considered 'heavily defended'.

So, they thought one of them was Sheppherd. He's worth a whole army, isn't he?

[EnterpriseSovereign]

The thing with carriers in settings like ST is that unlike the sea-going vessels that we have today, the fighters they field don't provide the majority of the total firepower available to the ship.

Unless I'm very much mistaken, a modern-day aircraft carrier is going to be pretty useless without its fighters. In ST, what we see is that you have a warship that only dedicates a small portion of its total space to hangars and other facilities. Even the so-called carriers fielded in STO possess far more firepower than you'd expect from a traditional carrier, and it's a similar story with the ISD from SW- despite fielding 72 Tie fighters, nobody could mistake it for a carrier. If anything, they're more like warships that happen to carry fighters than actual carriers.

Put another way, the difference is like what's been seen in the MCU- the original helicarrier is the sea-going version, while the heavily-armed ones seen in The Winter Soldier are like the ST/SW versions.

[Lord Revan]

The thing with carriers in settings like ST is that unlike the sea-going vessels that we have today, the fighters they field don't provide the majority of the total firepower available to the ship.

Unless I'm very much mistaken, a modern-day aircraft carrier is going to be pretty useless without its fighters. In ST, what we see is that you have a warship that only dedicates a small portion of its total space to hangars and other facilities. Even the so-called carriers fielded in STO possess far more firepower than you'd expect from a traditional carrier, and it's a similar story with the ISD from SW- despite fielding 72 Tie fighters, nobody could mistake it for a carrier. If anything, they're more like warships that happen to carry fighters than actual carriers.

Put another way, the difference is like what's been seen in the MCU- the original helicarrier is the sea-going version, while the heavily-armed ones seen in The Winter Soldier are like the ST/SW versions.

well the most carriers do have mininal firepower (mostly if not totally AA-weapons and anti-missile protection), the soviets did design and built carriers with signifigant anti-ship capabilities (sort of carrier/cruiser hybrids) can't remember if those ships were viable or just ships with weaknesses of both cruisers and carriers and no of the benefits but no one had guts to tell the Kremlin that they sucked (granted those were post Stalin designs so the fear of getting purged wasn't as big), I'm sure someone more familiar with naval history can provide the details.

[Batman]

Every time carriers have been used in combat they've done jack all themselves, it's 'always' been the air wing that did the work. The Soviets got away with those stupid hybrid carriers because they never had to actually use them.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Why would you maintain a truck as means of transport between 2 locations at all when the distance between them is 2000km?

I was going to respond to the rest of your stupidity point by point, but then you made it easy for me and conceded the argument!

The fact that you actually think this statement was a rebuttal to my point, WHEN THE ENTIRE THING I WAS ARGUING IS THAT YOU CAN'T IGNORE DISTANCE WHEN PLANNING A LOGISTICS NETWORK (as you have claimed multiple times in this thread), is as amusing as it is puzzling. All of your bizarre whining about software packages was irrelevant, anyway, and most of the rest of your post was just some good old fashioned Wall of Ignorance. But you made it easy for me by immediately (and, apparently, accidentally) conceding the point by admitting that distance is a factor when choosing a means of transport! Which was the entire thing you were refusing to admit in all of your other long-winded posts. Thanks for playing, Sparky.

[Borgholio]

Since the idea of carriers in Trek is not quite as feasible as it is in modern Navies, what if we shift the discussion to another topic that actually DOES have representation in ST? Cruise missiles. In modern militaries, cruise missiles are often used to attack targets where it may be too dangerous for manned aircraft to go. They are also quite deadly vs warships, as both Russia and China have large anti-ship cruise missiles that could theoretically take out a carrier.

In ST, we see a couple examples of cruise missiles. The Cardassian Dreadnought missile for one, and the AI missiles from Voyager where they gained sentience. I wonder, if carriers aren't the best idea in Trek, why don't we see more powers use more cruise missiles in combat? The big example that comes to mind for me is Sacrifice of Angels. If the Feds had a few hundred cruise missiles with warheads similar to the Dreadnought, they could have sent those in to wreak havoc against the Dominion fleet before engaging them directly.

[Crazedwraith]

Well, the Cardassian Dreadnought presumably cost as much as a starship, required AI of the sort the Federation seems to have abandoned after M5 went kill-crazy and ultimately didn't work. Not the best model to work off.

Likewise the Warhead from Voyager's Warhead was rogue as well.


ETa: NuTrek does have it's super long range Photon Torpedeos though. They fill the Cruise missile role.

[Lord Revan]

yeah the Cardie Dreadnaught didn't work and it was quite big compared to the Voyager so most likely for a single use item quite expensive since we got remember that starships last long enough that benefits you gain from them "pay" for the initial cost.

Also the Dreadnaught was big enough to be intercepted by starships and while the Voyager couldn't bring it down in time the Intrepid-class isn't the most powerful starship the alpha quadrant powers have, not mention Klingons, Romulans and hell even UFP-captains might get in the way of the dreadnaught if that was the only way to stop it (basically ram it).

IIRC why Cruise missiles work so well in modern real life earth is that they're too small and fast to be consistantly intrecepted so they can reach their targets unmolested more easily.

[Borgholio]

IIRC why Cruise missiles work so well in modern real life earth is that they're too small and fast to be consistantly intrecepted so they can reach their targets unmolested more easily.

Would that not be possible in ST as well? Yeah Dreadnought was pretty big but the little warheads in the later episode were much smaller. Build a few thousand of those and launch them before you make contact with the enemy fleet.