A quick question on the Sovereign class:

[Alyeska]

Ah, what the hell.

Since this is a Sovereign thread, here are some images of the Enterprise-E kicking ass in Nemesis.


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http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v177/ ... ovie-6.jpg

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[Gustav32Vasa]

I'm a little confused regarding Nemesis. It takes place after Voyager is home but we dont see any of the new tech she brought home.

[Lord Revan]

I'm a little confused regarding Nemesis. It takes place after Voyager is home but we dont see any of the new tech she brought home.

that tech is probaly too advanced to be replicated, providing it wasn't destroyed when Voyager returned.

[SCVN 2812]

I'm a little confused regarding Nemesis. It takes place after Voyager is home but we dont see any of the new tech she brought home.

Political and legal concerns would prevent this technology from seeing wide spread use.

Transphasics: they are either a Borg specific weapon or would grant the Federation a decisive enough edge in battle that even in the wake of the Dominion war, the Romulans, Klingons, Cardassians, Breen ect. would almost certainly launch a pre-emptive strike when they found out the Federation was arming their ships with torpedoes that based on visuals, appear to pass through shields and even the hull to detonate inside a ship.

Albative armor generators: as someone mentioned some time ago, a Paramount employee mentioned that this would dramatically increase a ship's mass so you would get a ship that flies like a brick. In a battle with a high amount of maneuver and exploitation of firing arc blind spots, if you can't keep your enemy in your sights, you're screwed. Not to mention that Voyager did not use her shields and the armor at the same time so presuamby E-E wouldn't be able to to do so either. The only known defense against the Breen energy dampening weapon is a modification to the shields. No shields means anyone who has copied said weapon could leave a ship using the armor generators dead in the water. To date the Federation, Romulans, Klingons and Cardassians besides the Breen would have detailed knowledge of the workings of the energy dampening weapon and of them, only the Cardassians and Romulans are well known for the quality of their internal security, and the Cardassian's internal security has probably collapsed and is having to be completely rebuilt from ground level not to mention having to keep control in the midst of the chaos that the aftermath of a war you lost brings.

[CJvR]

A battlecruiser in the traditional definition is essentially a lightly armored battleship.

Well that depends on where you start. The original British BC wasn't built for, or intended to have anything to do with, the LoB. The I class (first BC) was an upgunned AC-Armored Cruiser. It's job was to scout and chase comerce raiders. The British BC was more Cruiser than Battle.
The Germans however designed their BCs to fight ships with heavy weapons from the start making them essentially light battleships at the expence of speed and weaponry.

It has a battleship's gun battery, but basically shit for armor protection, a sacrifice made for greater speed.

Most BC have some 80% of true BB firepower, 125% of it's speed and between 50-100% of it's armor protection. It is intresting to note that the German and the British designs both approached the fast BB from different directions. A BC do not have "shit for armor", anything less than the heaviest weapons are useless. Graf Spee can confirm this...

The concept at the time was highly flawed; the theory was that the battlecruiser's higher speed would allow it to strike at lumbering battleships and move out of range. It didn't work, as Jutland and the Bismarck demonstrated to the Royal Navy with disastrous results.

It was partially flawed, no BC was supposed to fight BBs, although at least the German ones were quite able to do so. The problem for the British was that a large part of their BC fleet wasn't even suited to fight other BC which became their task in the scouting forces and over which they had no significant speed advantage.
Hood and Bismarck isn't a fair comparisson, if you take a 20 year old ship without any major refits and throw it into a modern battle they will suffer no matter how impressive their abilities are on paper. Indeed Bismack herself suffered badly from her obsolete armor layout in her final battle - it was contemporary with Hood btw.

For reference, a comparison between the relevant areas of HMS Hood and the USS Tennessee, the former a battlecruiser, the latter a battleship, both commissioned in 1920.

Although the ships launched at the same time there is infact a whole generation of difference in the armor layout philosophy. The USN went "All or nothing" before the RN and Hood was the last ship completed before the change of layout and it was essentially a 1916 design and it does have protection to match the BBs of that same generation - the first British BC to do that. It also matched the firepower of the best BBs in the RN, also a first, but it was essentially obsolete before it was even completed.

USS Tennessee
Armor: 13 1/2" armor belt, 18" plate on the turrets, 3 1/2" +1 1/2" deck plating, 16" on the conning tower.

Maximum speed: 21 knots

HMS Hood
Armor: Main armor belt 12" amidships (original design 8", increased during construction), tapering to 5" forward and 6" stern; 7" lower armor belt; 12" plate on the turrets, average 2" deck thickness, average 10" on the conning tower.

Maximum speed: 32 knots highest recorded, average 31 knots.

Compare this to the first post-war British design, the G3 Battlecruisers.
Armor: Main armor belt 14" inclined 72deg, 17,5" Turret armor, 8" flat deck armor & 9" on the inclined parts + 1" detonator deck above the main armordeck, Conning tower 12".

Design speed 32kts.

These ships were killed by the Washington treaty and are considered some of the best BB/BCs never built.

So, really the primary difference is survivability and speed, with speed being far less of an issue for Federation vessels. On that score, if either of the two classes is a battleship class, it'd probably be the Sovereign.

I like to think of the Galaxy as the culmination of a century of fantasy and wishful thinking, the Sovereign is the design coming out of a harch dose of reality. The Galaxy do have vast volumes and could apparently be modified to provide adequate service as a warship but the Sovereigns are essentially the keel up result of the lessons learnt.
I would say that the Galaxy at best can be considered and Auxilliary BB while the Sovereign is built for the job. If the Sov is a BB or BC would depend on their company. The USN Iowa class is often considered the ultimate fast BB design. But if you compare it to the IJN Yamato and the USN Montana classes it look suspiciously like a BC.

[CJvR]

Since this is a Sovereign thread, here are some images of the Enterprise-E kicking ass in Nemesis.

Firing randomly is the best response that SF have come up with after a century of cloaks... Groan!!!
If the RN had been as incompetent the Windsors & Mountbattens could have changed back to their original names long ago.

[Bounty]

Firing randomly is the best response that SF have come up with after a century of cloaks... Groan!!!

Nope. They've used conventional sensors, plasma detectors, gravitic sensors, tachyon detection grids, tachyon scanners, anti-proton beams....The problem is that every time the Feds find a way to detect a cloaked vessel, the Romulans/Klingons/Remans find a way to make a better cloak. Classic arlms race.

Alyeska, sorry for misreading your post.

[Bounty]

Are they war refits too or am I just misidentifying the ships?

I think that's a stock Miranda. The Soyuz has a far bigger rear end.

[SCVN 2812]

A comment on the Miranda, on paper she outguns a Constitution but she can't bring all 4 torpedo launchers to bare at the same time, just 2.

Though the ability to drop a pair of torpedoes into your enemy's face while fleeing for your life cannot be underappreciated.

[Stofsk]

Oh my how my little thread has grown! The funny thing is, The Shadow answered my question in the first reply to my post.

But it's cool that the discussion has evolved. Thanks Shadow, for answering my question.

[CJvR]

The problem is that every time the Feds find a way to detect a cloaked vessel, the Romulans/Klingons/Remans find a way to make a better cloak. Classic arlms race.

I will admit that there were a few incidents where the Feds preformed better but tactics and doctrine for fighting cloaked ships should be hammered into the brain of every SF officer and it isn't. IMPO SF manages to get caught by surprise every time a Romulan use a cloak and it is annoying!
"My GOD! The Rom cloaked! They have only done that every time we fought them for the last two centuries who could have suspected they would do that again?"
One constant that no cloak have altered is that you notice when you hit the ship, so where are SF's area effect bombs that would quickly sweep the area considering the short ranges trek fight at. They have had over a century to develop the fucking depthcharge and they haven't done it, the RN did it in two years in WWI.

[Bounty]

One constant that no cloak have altered is that you notice when you hit the ship, so where are SF's area effect bombs that would quickly sweep the area considering the short ranges trek fight at.

Good point.

Well, at least in NEM they had the bright idea to just shoot every gun and look where the shots connected. It's a start...

[JME2]

I knew that. I uh... just wanted to make sure you knew that.

I did, don't worry. I've just been using the 'escort ship' line in my fanfic as of late to descirbe the post-Chin'toka Defiant and so it's been on my mind.

[Alyeska]

When the Scimitar fired on the Enterprise-E and the Enterprise wasn't prepared for battle, it was able to succesfuly fire through its cloak. But the moment the Enterprise was prepared for battle it fired on the Scimitar every time the Scimitar opened fire. Notice how the Enterprise was able to continue striking the Scimitar for some time while it was cloaked. Firing through the cloak is only an advantage for alpha strikes in the time of TNG+.

[Elheru Aran]

A Sovereign question I've always had...

Does it have the saucer-separation capability? As its engineering section is more or less connected directly to the passenger section, it doesn't seem to have a neck, per se... while I could see it separating, it doesn't quite look like 'twas designed to do so. Of course, it could be along the lines of the Prometheus class in that respect...

[brianeyci]

Firing through the cloak is only an advantage for alpha strikes in the time of TNG+.

Am I misinterpreting you or are you saying that TNG ships CAN fire while they are cloaked but don't because they don't want to get blasted with their shields down?

I would guess that alpha strike would be severely weakened by firing through cloak unless you had immense power generation like the Scimitar (relative to Trek power generation of course). More advanced cloaks should take more energy to conceal ships logically, and thus unless power generation capability increased in TNG by perhaps an order of magnitude, firing through cloak is not a good idea.

Brian

[CJvR]

Well, at least in NEM they had the bright idea to just shoot every gun and look where the shots connected. It's a start...

No it isn't, Kirk came up with something similar the first time he saw a cloak in action by firing proximity fused torpedoes at it. Apparently it was considered to violent and sticken from SF required reading lists.

[Rogue 9]

A Sovereign question I've always had...

Does it have the saucer-separation capability? As its engineering section is more or less connected directly to the passenger section, it doesn't seem to have a neck, per se... while I could see it separating, it doesn't quite look like 'twas designed to do so. Of course, it could be along the lines of the Prometheus class in that respect...

No, it doesn't, Graham Kennedy's colossal screwup in that regard in his fanfic Portal notwithstanding.

[JME2]

A Sovereign question I've always had...

Does it have the saucer-separation capability? As its engineering section is more or less connected directly to the passenger section, it doesn't seem to have a neck, per se... while I could see it separating, it doesn't quite look like 'twas designed to do so. Of course, it could be along the lines of the Prometheus class in that respect...

No, it doesn't, Graham Kennedy's colossal screwup in that regard in his fanfic Portal notwithstanding.

Designer John Eaves says he gave it the ability to do so during an interview with ST: The Magazine in 2002, I think it was.

[brianeyci]

No it isn't, Kirk came up with something similar the first time he saw a cloak in action by firing proximity fused torpedoes at it. Apparently it was considered to violent and sticken from SF required reading lists.

Later cloaks were more advanced than cloak of Kirk's time and probably disguised whatever EM signatures/Tachyon particles/technobabble they left behind better.

Also, Janeway and Co. consider using Spatial Charges to force the Think-Tank out of cloak. Considering we've never seen these spatial charges, they're probably just modified torpedoes proximity fused with a special warhead.

Brian

[Alyeska]

Firing through the cloak is only an advantage for alpha strikes in the time of TNG+.

Am I misinterpreting you or are you saying that TNG ships CAN fire while they are cloaked but don't because they don't want to get blasted with their shields down?

No. What I am saying is that had ships been able to do this in TNG era, it would only have been useful in Alpha strikes because the enemy ships would be able to imediately fire at the point of enemy fire.

[CJvR]

Notice how the Enterprise was able to continue striking the Scimitar for some time while it was cloaked. Firing through the cloak is only an advantage for alpha strikes in the time of TNG+.

I did notice, which is why a nice little area effect weapon would be so effective. Fire a pattern, notice where the patern is disturbed and hit the cloaked ship before they fire. Once detected the pattern needed to be sweep before each salvo will not be that big.

Also didn't this fight take place in some form of nebula dense enough to prevent communication? In that case the Scimitar should leave an actual trail through the gasses!

I do not hate the cloaking device, I like the concept of the space-subs. I do hate the constant incompetence displayed in fighting them though by constantly surprised SF officers staring in eternal surprise and disbelief at decloaking Romulans(or whatever). I do also hate the Über-cloak that pop up now and then allowing ships to operate under cloak with no penalties whatsoever. Defiant got beaten up rather badly by the Dominion despite running as silent as possible, a good plot on the dangers of cloaking devices btw. Scimitar matched the speed and power of the Sovereign without any problems or penalties. Not only did they have power to keep pace with Ent-E then they had just as much power to cover their tracks, one wonders why they even bothered with the cloak in the first place? Perhaps the ripple effects of the cloak is easier on the SFX budget than the ship itself...

[Rogue 9]

Notice how the Enterprise was able to continue striking the Scimitar for some time while it was cloaked. Firing through the cloak is only an advantage for alpha strikes in the time of TNG+.

I did notice, which is why a nice little area effect weapon would be so effective. Fire a pattern, notice where the patern is disturbed and hit the cloaked ship before they fire. Once detected the pattern needed to be sweep before each salvo will not be that big.

Also didn't this fight take place in some form of nebula dense enough to prevent communication? In that case the Scimitar should leave an actual trail through the gasses!

I do not hate the cloaking device, I like the concept of the space-subs. I do hate the constant incompetence displayed in fighting them though by constantly surprised SF officers staring in eternal surprise and disbelief at decloaking Romulans(or whatever). I do also hate the Über-cloak that pop up now and then allowing ships to operate under cloak with no penalties whatsoever. Defiant got beaten up rather badly by the Dominion despite running as silent as possible, a good plot on the dangers of cloaking devices btw. Scimitar matched the speed and power of the Sovereign without any problems or penalties. Not only did they have power to keep pace with Ent-E then they had just as much power to cover their tracks, one wonders why they even bothered with the cloak in the first place? Perhaps the ripple effects of the cloak is easier on the SFX budget than the ship itself...

The Scimitar was also far larger than the E-E, and had to have much greater power generating capabilities just for the superweapon OF PWNING DOOM, whatever they called it. As for why they were bothering with the cloak, the less you get hit by the Big E, the better. That, and they were dealing with two Warbirds as well.

[CJvR]

Later cloaks were more advanced than cloak of Kirk's time and probably disguised whatever EM signatures/Tachyon particles/technobabble they left behind better.

Yeah, but as long as you can hit a ship under cloak with weapons it will obviously be exposed by high energy detonations. Kirk was able to get a good enough read on the BoP to fire for effect.
Im simply suggesting firing such charges to reveal the ships position for the main barrage, a tactic that would work on every cloak ever used by the Feds enemies.
Phased cloaks might alter this but noone have those.

Also, Janeway and Co. consider using Spatial Charges to force the Think-Tank out of cloak. Considering we've never seen these spatial charges, they're probably just modified torpedoes proximity fused with a special warhead.

Pity they forgot to equip Ent-E with them then... The were only going to Romulus after all. What are the odds of running into a cloaking device there?

[Alyeska]

Something to consider about the Scimitar. I did an estimate on the total number of torpedoes the Enterprise-E could have fired based on onscreen fire rates in the time allotted to the point where the Enterprise ran out of torpedoes. I cam up with an estimate where the Scimitar took almost 200 photon torpedoes, and this is using a refire rate below the observed refire rates of each launcher. And do remember the Scimitar still had 70% shields.

I think the Scimitar was able to use the power it directed to the medusa cannon for its shields when the medusa cannon was not being readied to fire. This explains why the Scimitar had such bloody powerful shields. IMO, its shields are more powerful in comparison then its weapon count.