A thought on the history behind phaser design

[The Silence and I]

During a firefight many people may not think to dial up the power, prefering instead to try and hit whoever pops out of cover. The main cast is guilty of this as well, so I would chalk this one up to insufficient military training. A supporting evidence is wide-angle stun. It has happened before, has no apparent negative effects on power packs, and would solve many a firefight. Yet few ever remember to use it.
Finally, a rifle in Nemesis blasted a hole in the metal door to the Scimitar's bridge large enough for Picard to easily step through. He expected to use it afterward, so likely had enough power left for a real fire-fight. This is more advanced than a TNG pistol, but shows the tech is there.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

Pistol phasers can't, at least not without using a prohibitive percentage of their power reserve.
As pistol phasers are effectively sidearms equivalent to the US' M9 that means what?

Well, if they are then going to bring up something (like that rifle Picard used in Nemesis) that would annihilate the crate, that'd be fine. Too bad that seems to be the rarity.

The core contention originally made was that NDF weapons are BY DEFINITION inferior to DET/KE ones, for which I have yet to see evidence.

Wasn't that conceded already? Because NDF still involves a transfer of real energy, it is hard to imagine that it would do greatly worse than a normal energy transfer, even when the opposing material provides no reactivity.

A crate's walls are not very thick. If I used a bullet (kJ class energy), and settled for something with less expansion, there's every chance I can penetrate the crate and hit the (generally unarmored) enemy. IIRC, a phaser (even a pistol) is generally rated as MJ class, so if that doesn't do much to a crate, there's a small problem.

[Batman]

Pistol phasers can't, at least not without using a prohibitive percentage of their power reserve.
As pistol phasers are effectively sidearms equivalent to the US' M9 that means what?

Well, if they are then going to bring up something (like that rifle Picard used in Nemesis) that would annihilate the crate, that'd be fine. Too bad that seems to be the rarity.

Oh, I agree. But the Fed's not bringing (or not even building) the right tools does not make the tools they DO bring useless. Is a screwdriver a design failure merely because what you need is a crowbar?

The core contention originally made was that NDF weapons are BY DEFINITION inferior to DET/KE ones, for which I have yet to see evidence.

Wasn't that conceded already? Because NDF still involves a transfer of real energy, it is hard to imagine that it would do greatly worse than a normal energy transfer, even when the opposing material provides no reactivity.

My point exactly.

A crate's walls are not very thick. If I used a bullet (kJ class energy), and settled for something with less expansion, there's every chance I can penetrate the crate and hit the (generally unarmored) enemy. IIRC, a phaser (even a pistol) is generally rated as MJ class, so if that doesn't do much to a crate, there's a small problem.

1. If I remember correctly, Cardassian hand phasers were stated to have an energy capacity in the single-figure MJ range. Assuming Fed ones are not vastly superior, that would make them low-to-mid KJ per discharge.
2. The bullet will leave the crate mostly intact thanks to merely drilling a hole through it. Have we ever seen a phaser do this? Chances are to get at the enemy, the phaser will have to NDF away the entire crate AND its content, which very well may use a large percentage of it's capacity.
3. I reiterate: Why should a sidearm be capable of this in the first place?