An idea about Ambassador-class starships . . .

[Batman]

I read you're post as a rebuttal rather than an addition. Oops.

And I can absolutely see why, so my bad, really. Some clarification probably would have helped.

I will repeat again, as no one seems to have addressed it yet, my thought on considering the Akiras as a battlecruiser-type design. Intended either as a hit-and-run ship in battles or possibly as a commerce raider.

Problem is, the alleged number of torpedo tubes makes no sense for a commerce raider. You simply don't need that kind of firepower to take down cargo ships. And while your hit-and-run idea makes sense in theory, it sort of breaks down in the face of the Akiras never using their awesome Alpha Strike capabilities. Even if we assume that every time we saw an Akira in action they were low on torpedoes, it by your own reasoning would have made damn good sense to volley what they had left and get the hell out of dodge.

[Eternal_Freedom]

True, but then again the Royal Navy tried using their battlecruisers as line-of-battle ships, so throwing them into a melee they aren't intended for is not unprecedented.

Of course, the other and much more likely explanation is that the 15 tube figure is simply wrong.

[Uraniun235]

Since ACSs are newer, the Borg may or may not have known about them in assessing the E's tactical effectiveness opposite the rest of the fleet.

I mean, by 2366, ACSs may or may not have made it out of the shipyards at that point.

But I can't appeal to ignorance. Although I had high hopes that the Collective's statement meant GCSs** are generally > ACSs, that simply doesn't work out***.

Two asides:

**Regarding the Borg's declaration, "Captain Jean-Luc Picard, you control the strongest ship in the Federation fleet. You speak for your people," the Enterprise wasn't the only operational GCS. So ... is the E-D somehow superior to the other GCSs? Why would the Borg think that? Maybe they mistakenly believed the E was special because it magically escaped a cube's grasp in the J25 system, not knowing Q was responsible for saving Picard's neck.

***Interestingly enough, it does probably mean that GCSs are generally > Nebulas, which some fanboys also assert are tactically superior to the GCS on the basis of more forward torpedo tubes. But that's also a whole other ball of wax.

With regard to comparisons between ship classes, it's possible that the Borg use measurements other than phaser strips and torpedo firing rates to determine "strongest ship". For example, the Galaxy class may have the most powerful antimatter reactor in the entire fleet (it was certainly intended to be the fastest during the TNG run, and was certainly no slouch even into the later years of the franchise), or perhaps the shield generators are the biggest and best that Starfleet can produce (or maybe benefit from that huge reactor core?), or maybe it's some other metric entirely. It certainly wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if the Borg would judge a ship or species by the sheer amount of energy they can wield.

As to differences with other Galaxies, this isn't impossible. We know that the ships are intended to be upgraded at intervals, that they're spread out (and in my mind, likely to receive upgrades at different intervals, and possibly even differing upgrades), and that Ent-D had received modifications to both the engines and the computer core*. It's possible that other Galaxy class starships had not yet received any of those upgrades.


*The engines were tinkered with in Where No Man Has Gone Before, but more substantially in mind is Booby Trap. Of course

The computer core received its upgrade in 11001001.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I believe we se in DS9 the Venture with extra bits attached. IIRC this is because the effects blokes re0used the futre E-D from "All Good Things." Thus, we know of at least one ship with different upgrades to the E-D.

As a complete aside, how many GCs's are there? I know the original class was 6 (Galaxy, Enterprise, Yamato, Odyssey, Venture and Challenger), but I would think they added more.

[Crazedwraith]

A quick glance through Memory Alpha doesn't show that EF? What's the source of the 6 Galaxies thing?

[Eternal_Freedom]

Isn't it on there anymore? Strange, I'd swear it was last time I read it. Anyway, those are the 6 GCS's I know of. It would seem that they did indeed build more.

Ah, having checked, the 6 ship class thing came from misremembering the Federation Industrial Assets section on the main sight. Oops, sorry everyone!

EDIT: Also, I must have got confused by the six-ship list of comissioned ships on Memory Alpha.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Yeah, I looked at the "unnamed ships" article and apparently at least ten are seen in the fleet leaving Starbase 375 for Operation Return.

[Crazedwraith]

Only tangentially related but does anyone else thing the Ambassador is a really pretty ship? It was a bit of a disappointment when I re-watched 'Yesterday's Enterprise' to realise the EC doesn't actually do anything in the episode apart from sitting there with the shit already kicked out of it.

Another reason to really want a Star Trek: New Frontier TV series would be to see the USS Excalibur strut its stuff a bit.

[Uraniun235]

I'm pretty sure Roddenberry or one of the other producers said that was the original number idea. Of course, DS9 showed a lot of them, so the situation was different by then.

I think it originally came from Roddenberry. It was mentioned somewhere in the TNG TM as being an initial production run of six, with six additional frames on option. I can't remember if the second six were supposed to be like a set of hull skeletons that were more or less boxed up in some Starfleet facility or if it was more like a budget reserve sort of thing.

Yeah, I looked at the "unnamed ships" article and apparently at least ten are seen in the fleet leaving Starbase 375 for Operation Return.

This was something that bugged me about the DS9 fleet shots. I don't mean that there should have only ever been six Galaxy-class ships, but the proportions of ships always seemed way off. For that matter, if there are so many Excelsiors and Mirandas still floating around, where did all the Ambassador class ships go? (to bring this thread back full circle... )

[JudgeKing]

I believe we se in DS9 the Venture with extra bits attached. IIRC this is because the effects blokes re0used the futre E-D from "All Good Things." Thus, we know of at least one ship with different upgrades to the E-D.

As a complete aside, how many GCs's are there? I know the original class was 6 (Galaxy, Enterprise, Yamato, Odyssey, Venture and Challenger), but I would think they added more.

Canon: Challenger, Enterprise, Galaxy, Magellan, Odyssey, Venture, Trinculo, Yamato

Non-canon: Agrippa, Allegheny, Asgard, Cheyenne, Constitution, Dauntless, Excalibur-A, Hedderjin, Idaho, Jefferies, Madison, Mukaikubo, Oraidhe, Oregon, Robinson, San Francisco, Trident, Ulysses

[Eternal_Freedom]

Whats the cannon source for the Magellan and the Trinculo?

[Stofsk]

Only tangentially related but does anyone else thing the Ambassador is a really pretty ship?

Totally. It's one of my favourite TNG era designs.

[Simon_Jester]

On the subject of the Akiras:

Them being designed as a warship doesn't necessarily mean they're the most powerful ships in the Starfleet. They tip the scales at around three million tons, compared to five for the Galaxies. The idea that the Akira is designed as some kind of 'torpedo cruiser,' with a relatively specialized combat mission, would explain only a small number being built; Starfleet prefers flexible multirole ships that can fight and patrol and do scientific missions and so on.

But a Galaxy that's 60% bigger and heavier than an Akira might nonetheless mount bigger weapons/more powerful shields/better systems redundancy/whatever than the Akira, even if the Galaxy isn't so heavily optimized for a naval battle.

[Agent Sorchus]

What could be possible is that the Akira's are an attempt to address Star fleets weakness in systematic damage. How often do you hear weapons offline after only one or two hits? So they build a design that can theoretically take those lucky shots by having excess launchers built into it, even if it can only power (or supply the antimatter for) one or two launchers at a time. Of course this doesn't make them really tougher so they are still a cruiser to the galaxy battleships. And they would be expensive (relatively) cruisers, so we wouldn't see to many of them. (I looked on Memory Alpha and it didn't look like there were actually that many of them on screen ever, but if some one has a better count I would be much obliged. They seem to be rarer than Galaxy class vessels in the Dominion war.)

[Batman]

Small problem-there doesn't seem to be any real correlation between hit location and affected systems, so having lots of redundant launchers may or may not work out all that well. Besides, doesn't explain why we never see them use their awesome Alpha strike capability. At all. Unless you're saying that every Akira we saw fire torpedoes in battle was already damaged or they intentionally designed the ship to be incapable of using all its weapons even when in peak working condition.
Not being able to maintain a constant rate of fire (at least one worth mentioning) on all tubes is one thing, but not being able to use all of them for even the opening salvo? Preload a single torpedo each (and I don't see why they couldn't do it for more than that, if they know they're going into battle ) and whatever refire rate you can actually maintain, that's one hell of an opening broadside.

[Agent Sorchus]

Problem with preloading is that the torpedo is sitting there with active antimatter and takes power to contain. While it should also take power to contain in the central batteries the central batteries are likely to be both better shielded and have more efficient systems compared to the disposable torpedoes. So yes incapable of firing all 15 tubes at once. (Also noting that the Akira's vaunted 15 tubes are not all arrayed forward so they couldn't alpha strike anyway.)

I never said that the multitube feature actually helped with systematic damage did I? So Akiras could just be a semi failed experiment. And yes most Akiras we see are either damaged or in the later stages of battle. (We see several during fleet shots, but when the weapons start firing they are conspicuously off screen.)

[Eternal_Freedom]

Ummm, I think I might just throw this out here. What exactly is the source on this 15 tube thing?

Because in Bridge Commander (Not a brilliant source but still) it has 4 forward and two aft, the same as the Galaxy but able to fire quantum torps as well as photons.

For reference, the two aft and two of the forward tubes are in the pod on the roll-bar, whilst the remaining two forward tubes are in the ventral section of the saucer.

[Batman]

Problem with preloading is that the torpedo is sitting there with active antimatter and takes power to contain.

There's no such thing as passive antimatter. That's the main problem with the stuff.

While it should also take power to contain in the central batteries the central batteries are likely to be both better shielded and have more efficient systems compared to the disposable torpedoes.

As long as the torpedoes are still onboard I don't see why they couldn't rely on external power, and it's not like we're talking about a period of hours leave alone longer here. Fill'em up five minutes before you go into battle. Presto. In both TWOK and TUC, we see torpedoes that apparently are already loaded handled safely with nobody being particularly worried about it (indeed, in TUC Spock and Bones weren't particularly concerned about doing on-the-fly modifications to a live torpedo).

So yes incapable of firing all 15 tubes at once. (Also noting that the Akira's vaunted 15 tubes are not all arrayed forward so they couldn't alpha strike anyway.)

Given that photon torpedoes are guided they absolutely could. Just time the launches so the torpedoes from the rear launchers arrive at the same time as the ones from the frontal ones.

I never said that the multitube feature actually helped with systematic damage did I?

You brought it up as a possible solution for the problem, thus I pointed out why that particular solution would likely not work.

[Batman]

Ummm, I think I might just throw this out here. What exactly is the source on this 15 tube thing?

According to Sean earlier in this thread, apparently the CGI model does show 15 installations that very much look like torpedo launchers.

[Uraniun235]

Ummm, I think I might just throw this out here. What exactly is the source on this 15 tube thing?

According to Sean earlier in this thread, apparently the CGI model does show 15 installations that very much look like torpedo launchers.

Additionally, the guy who designed the Akira commented on it on Doug Drexler's blog:

As far as Torpedo launchers go, I believe it was 15 photon and 2 quantum for the total of 17, the Qauntum ones would be the center 2 forward facing ones in the weapons pod.

Although, in the post itself, he does say:

I’m sure there are flaws (like I’ve heard there are too many torpedo launchers etc…) as the time frame to do this plus all the other work I had to do was very short, so some of these details evolved during that process.

Also, Sean may find the following interesting:

Akira class utilizes the escape pods from the Sovereign Class, but the panel details more like the Galaxy class. That’s because I imagined this ship was commissioned right before the “E” and served as a testbed for the new escape pods.

[Uraniun235]

You guys may also find the following relic from 1998 interesting:

[Stofsk]

Can someone point out where these fifteen tubes are on the Akira, I'm having difficulty locating them.

EDIT Seriously guys, this does not look like fifteen tubes:


Looks more like four. Where are the other eleven?

[Uraniun235]

Source is aforementioned post on Drexler's blog.

Another six on the rear of the pod:




Originally intended to be three qtorp tubes underslung on the pod, although the designer only mentions two:




There's also supposed to be a forward tube on the saucer in front of the deflector, as was seen firing in First Contact.

[Batman]

Anybody else think that feature in the middle of the saucer extension looks like a giant robot head?

[Stofsk]

Source is aforementioned post on Drexler's blog.

Although the production sketches are nice, what would have been nicer is seeing quantum torpedoes shooting out of there during First Contact, since I only remember it shooting photorps.

There's also supposed to be a forward tube on the saucer in front of the deflector, as was seen firing in First Contact.

Are you talking about what appears to be on the Akira's saucer section's 'ten forward' area?




According to Bernd Schneider's site, that forward compartment is a shuttlebay. The screencraps seem to support that, IMO. They glow like there are lights there, which suggests to me a shuttlebay rather than torpedo tubes. They also look too big to be torpedo tubes.

EDIT: Ahh, nevermind, I saw the clip where Thunderchild shoots photorps from where it's navigational deflector should be. I can't exactly see the tubes though.