Using projectile weapons versus the Borg.

[brianeyci]

I keep hearing this they will defend against projectile weapons, but just how can the Borg defend given the way they fight?

If they slap in ceramic plates and invent armored vests and plate armor, it's entirely possible a projectile weapon using opponent would use armor piercing bullets. Or machine guns. Or grenade launchers. Why assume the body armor is any better than what can be used in real life?

Honestly there's no reason to assume the Borg could defend against projectile weapons at all, especially since they walk up to their enemies and jab their necks. At that range even a Somali militiaman couldn't miss, and a trained soldier could aim for an ocular implant.

The Fistfull of Datas shield is cited, but why? It's entirely possible it's Federation technology that the Borg can't duplicate. You would never see fans of other science fiction series say, the Asgard can copy Earth guns, or the Vorlons can copy PPG's.

[Junghalli]

You would never see fans of other science fiction series say, the Asgard can copy Earth guns

As an aside, I'd be pretty surprised if an interstellar civilization couldn't copy AK-47s and M-16s. If we can make them easily with twentieth century technology what about them is going to stump somebody with technology hundreds or thousands of years more advanced? It's not like they rely on any terribly exotic principles or materials.

[Batman]

Excuse me? How is 1-2 drones being taken out by phasers enough of a drain on the Borg resources to warrant them adapting to it, but 1-2 drones being taken down by bullets is not?
There is exactly ZERO evidence for the Borg adapting to KE/momentum attacks. After having been exposed to them again, and again, and again.

[Flagg]

Excuse me? How is 1-2 drones being taken out by phasers enough of a drain on the Borg resources to warrant them adapting to it, but 1-2 drones being taken down by bullets is not?
There is exactly ZERO evidence for the Borg adapting to KE/momentum attacks. After having been exposed to them again, and again, and again.

I would counter that since everyone they go up against has a phaser, it makes far more sense to quickly adapt to those, rather than holographic tommy guns and Klingon cutlery.

You're still correct, though. They have shown no ability or inclination to adapt against kinetic attacks. Which is retarded. Especially when dealing with species like 8472 who apparently don't use weapons of any sort in personal combat.

[Ghost Rider]

Strange of all this talk of kinetic shielding, yet when it came time on multiple occasions where it would've won the day.

Nope, nada, zip.

Or were species 8472's claws or Worf almighty dagger too high tech for them?

[Peptuck]

Incidentally, it usually takes 2+ drones to die in delayed order before the Borg even adapt to Phasers so Picard being able to nail 2 drones simultaneously in the holodeck dosent strike me as being entirely conclusive in suggesting they dont have the means to defend / adapt against bullets if they choose to.

But they certainly don't adapt to any KE attacks at all during the course of the movie. Even after Worf and Data hammer the crap out of them, Worf slices them to bits, Picard kills two with a .45. submachinegun, and Picard orders the Enterprise crew to fight the Borg hand to hand.

We havent seen bullets used against them by the Federation despite having projectile weapons on DS9 and Picard definetly didnt seem to note of the effectiveness of the weapon in the holodeck. He has the greatest chance of knowing if the Borg are vulnerable to this type of weapon as a whole or by using it the next 2 drones that came would have adapted.

This is the same Federation that does not issue knives, grenades, mortars, or machineguns to infantry holding a vital strategic target. This is the same Federation whose primary weapons lack sights, trigger guards, detachable ammunition, or anything resembling proper ergonomics.

The fact that the Federation does not use weapons that would be particularly effective against the Borg is irrelevant when one considers their staggering incompetence when it comes to ground combat.

[The Yosemite Bear]

remember this is the federation whose Idea of a ground assualt vehicle is a dune buggy with a fixed rear axis phasor rifle. not even a proper swivial mount weaker then a WWII jeep.

[Stravo]

Its a hell of a good shot, even if his eyes are closed.

You should redo it with Picard screaming.

As for bullets, one thing that annoys me is people going they could automatically replicate many guns. No, Picard having one gun doesn't mean he could replicate five hundred. Actually, it's entirely possible it's a real gun, something he custom ordered from some gunsmith somewhere on Ferengi and can't just replicate.

In the TOS episode "A Private little War" Kirk and Co. easily replicate one hundred flintlocks from common stores on the Enterprise when they encounter Klingon military assistance corrupting a society so I'd say they have a pretty good chance at replicating fire arms in no time.

[The Yosemite Bear]

but remember except for DS9 TNG era Trek and Enterprise HATE the original series.

[montypython]

Starfleet vessels do have K-bar type knives, as seen in one Voyager episode where Janeway takes one out of a storage locker. It just isn't used very frequently.

[PREDATOR490]

Excuse me? How is 1-2 drones being taken out by phasers enough of a drain on the Borg resources to warrant them adapting to it, but 1-2 drones being taken down by bullets is not?
.

Simple. Borg look for technology to assimilate and that often leads them to races that use energy weapons thus they have incorporated defensive technology against energy weapons.
Projectile weapons however have only been encountered by the Borg ONCE from a race that is established as being restricted to phasers and in an environment where adaption was too late. Drones apparantly need to be taken down before the Borg adapt to phasers so the same is likely of any weapon.
They only HAD 2 drones in the holodeck so the 3rd and 4th drones dont exist for the adaption to apply. Not that it matters anyway because the Borg should realise what Picard did and would be better just switching the Holodeck off or re applying the safety features. Picard cant use the weapon outside the holodeck so there was no threat from that weapon again.

The Borg in First Contact were completely cut off from the collective and had only the resources of a Federation ship to work with. The drones that were killed also happened to be assimilated crew members which may not have been given the kind of augmentations a drone would recieve from a proper Borg ship. The DQ Collective cant adapt to something they never knew about or even need to due to the abundant lack of any other races using guns against them.

There is exactly ZERO evidence for the Borg adapting to KE/momentum attacks. After having been exposed to them again, and again, and again.

First Contact has an isolated Hive stuck in an enemy warship with limited resources and time. They are assimilating the ship in rapid order with a clear goal of taking the ship over and contacting their present selves. I can only think of 4 specific incidents where Kinetic attacks were used in First Contact.

1) Data - He is already demonstrated as being stronger than a Borg drone and adapting in that situation wasnt required. They had him cornered fairly quickly and after that they assumed he was on their side.

2) Picard - Already went over this but it was an isolated incident in a completely unorthadox environment that Picard couldnt / wouldnt / didnt repeat.

3) Worf - This one is the more damning in my opinion but in light of the fact this entire film isnt the full force of the collective and that we know for a fact different drones serve different functions it is entirely possible the drone Worf gutted was a technician rather than a combat drone assuming its not a hastily assimilated crew member which would make it even less conclusive that all Borg are vulnerable to KE attacks.

4) Random Redshirt / Hand to hand - Picard had his people engage hand to hand with the Borg and we saw at the very beginning how that went for the poor sucker who tried it. They may not be as strong as Data but they obviously have strength beyond your average Federation crew member.

Overall, the need to adapt to hand to hand combat for the Borg isnt required most of the time. We have seen how they handle hand to hand in the T4 Cube. Janeway and co. got busted in rapid order and the fact the very cube has armor plating would suggest an attempt at adapting to kinetic attacks.

[Ghost Rider]

LMAO...ah the old canard and logical fallacy of "They will when they need to."

So much like the Federation using Q, time travel, and other one shots to defeat the Dominion. Where were the Borg KE shields when 8472 was carving them up? Where were these vaunted shields when literally Worf carved one up?

This has two thoughts.

1. They have them, but must first learn to adapt to some mumbo jumbo special Borg shield to learn how to use them.

2. They have none, because they rely on a frequency based shielding like most of the Trek powers.

Let's think hard which Occam prefers in the Trekverse.

[Jark]

LMAO...ah the old canard and logical fallacy of "They will when they need to."

So much like the Federation using Q, time travel, and other one shots to defeat the Dominion. Where were the Borg KE shields when 8472 was carving them up? Where were these vaunted shields when literally Worf carved one up?

This has two thoughts.

1. They have them, but must first learn to adapt to some mumbo jumbo special Borg shield to learn how to use them.

2. They have none, because they rely on a frequency based shielding like most of the Trek powers.

Let's think hard which Occam prefers in the Trekverse.

Aren't normal forcefields and shields on and in ships also frequency based in Star Trek?

Also, I thought 8472 was able to go through normal forcefields and shields as though they weren't there. Even if the Borg could have KE shields on drones, would that have actually prevented them from being torn apart by an 8472?

[Alien-Carrot]

Does anyone know what the released kenetic energy of dozen bullets is as compared to a phaser shot?

We never see feds try to overpower drone shields with concentrated fire.
Even if the drones adapt their shields to the frequency, they can only negate as much phaser power as their shield emmiters can supply.

Its possible that the drones shields have a limited power, and a single or double phaser strike isnt enough to penetrate the shield. While sustained fire from a tommygun could overpower their shields.

I realise that a single phaser blast probably has more power then all the bullets in a tommyguns clip, but the sustained burst could be all thats needed.

[Patrick Degan]

Does anyone know what the released kenetic energy of dozen bullets is as compared to a phaser shot?

We never see feds try to overpower drone shields with concentrated fire.
Even if the drones adapt their shields to the frequency, they can only negate as much phaser power as their shield emmiters can supply.

Its possible that the drones shields have a limited power, and a single or double phaser strike isnt enough to penetrate the shield. While sustained fire from a tommygun could overpower their shields.

I realise that a single phaser blast probably has more power then all the bullets in a tommyguns clip, but the sustained burst could be all thats needed.

The youngling gets it. That is exactly why all the Borg-wankers can take their Infinite Adaptability talk and shove it up their asses. No matter how a drone may adjust the frequency of its shield, it's ability to resist directed energy in the end extends as far as the output of its powerpack. Exceed that and you've got one dead drone and it won't matter how well he "adapted" to phaser fire.

[Ted C]

Does anyone know what the released kenetic energy of dozen bullets is as compared to a phaser shot?

We never see feds try to overpower drone shields with concentrated fire.
Even if the drones adapt their shields to the frequency, they can only negate as much phaser power as their shield emmiters can supply.

Its possible that the drones shields have a limited power, and a single or double phaser strike isnt enough to penetrate the shield. While sustained fire from a tommygun could overpower their shields.

I realise that a single phaser blast probably has more power then all the bullets in a tommyguns clip, but the sustained burst could be all thats needed.

I believe that a single bullet from a high-powered rifle carries about 3 kJ when it leaves the barrel.

As to drone shields have to match the power of the phaser? I don't know that it would apply. After all, does a mirror, a lense, or a diffraction grating use energy when it reflects or bends light? I don't see why a shield would necessarily have to do work equal to the energy content of an incoming beam.

[Stravo]

Does anyone know what the released kenetic energy of dozen bullets is as compared to a phaser shot?

We never see feds try to overpower drone shields with concentrated fire.
Even if the drones adapt their shields to the frequency, they can only negate as much phaser power as their shield emmiters can supply.

Its possible that the drones shields have a limited power, and a single or double phaser strike isnt enough to penetrate the shield. While sustained fire from a tommygun could overpower their shields.

I realise that a single phaser blast probably has more power then all the bullets in a tommyguns clip, but the sustained burst could be all thats needed.

I believe that a single bullet from a high-powered rifle carries about 3 kJ when it leaves the barrel.

As to drone shields have to match the power of the phaser? I don't know that it would apply. After all, does a mirror, a lense, or a diffraction grating use energy when it reflects or bends light? I don't see why a shield would necessarily have to do work equal to the energy content of an incoming beam.

Time and again in the episodes we have seen drones get struck by phaser fire and no visible shield effect happens, they drop and die yet once they adapt a shield effect is clearly visible indicating deflection of phaser fire.

This would suggest that drone personal shields are purely a frequency based defense and offers little to no protection against the actual energy of a weapon since unadapted phaser bursts are not even partially blocked. In fact the shield doesn't even attempt to do anything to the phaser blast. It is only when the frequency is captured that the shield interacts with the phaser. This is a far more specialized defense than simple personal shields. These personal shields can't even protect against the energy directed by simple hand to hand combat.

[NecronLord]

We see them with ray shields, have we ever seen a Borg drone with a deflector/force shield?

Yes, in Voyager's 'Drone,' Seven's nanoprobes infest the Doctor's 'mobile emitter' and create (using a growth tank, something they really should have shown more of regarding the Borg) a drone using the technology base therin. Among other things, it has internal teleporters and kinetic shields. These shields protect it from conventional borg drones when it boards and destroys a sphere.

It's interesting to note that the pesky and disbelief-breakingly versatile little buggers make a kinetic shield as soon as the technology is available to them, suggesting that the borg aren't capable of it normally.

Since the Dixon Hill games are campy detective pulp, the holodeck may be using movie logic - bottles and villains go down while innocent bystanders aren't even scratched.

Indeed, I doubt the average player wants to deal with the consequences of gunning down fifty people because he's not proficient with a tommy gun.

As for bullets, one thing that annoys me is people going they could automatically replicate many guns. No, Picard having one gun doesn't mean he could replicate five hundred. Actually, it's entirely possible it's a real gun, something he custom ordered from some gunsmith somewhere on Ferengi and can't just replicate.

DS9's roundly inferior cardassian replicators could replicate energy weapons. Are you seriously suggesting that a 9mm is more complex than a computerised turret gun the size of your hand capable of hunting and destroying targets, and discerning cardassians from other races? Even then, the Ent-Nil could rapidly assemble masses of flintlocks. And what's this about that being a real physical gun? One that he must leave on the holodeck between his plays, and hope no one trips up on it? And then proceeds to leave this physically solid gun behind rather than taking it out of the Holodeck?

You would never see fans of other science fiction series say, the Asgard can copy Earth guns,

Even though they can work with human materials, enhance and repair human vessels in basically no time. They can replicate far more complicated weapons in an instant. Asgard technology has little difficulty, once programmed with an appropriate CAD design, in creating food, Chellos, and any other supplies SG1 required to live for some fifty years. What's more, Apophis once made an entire cache of copies of human weapons, as Intar. We see from later episodes that the seized Intars are fully functioning earth guns when loaded with live ammunition.

Hathor reproduced a largely accurate rendition of the SGC with some 'future' elements, from memory, and the Asurans, in Atlantis reproduced the entire base. As in, made a completely convincing copy of all the earth equipment, including guns, on it.

I think it's a fair bet that they can.

or the Vorlons can copy PPG's.

Why the hell wouldn't they be able to? They may not have the means do to such on their persons, but the entire Vorlon Empire? What? It's probably not their first choice - Sebastian's cane was a far more potent weapon in many respects - but if they really needed to make one, I can't see why that would be a problem.

Does anyone know what the released kenetic energy of dozen bullets is as compared to a phaser shot?

Miniscule. Romulan-knockoff Phaser Rifles (which actually had parts more efficient than the real deal) operated in the low single megawatt range. An M1A1 Abrams' main gun produces double-figure Megajoules of energy. Smallarms are generally single digit kilojoules or below.

Momentum is more important when dealing with projectiles, than kinetic energy, though.

[Ted C]

I think the point is that when Borg drone shields do stop phasers, they don't necessarily use much energy. It's possible to reflect, deflect, or scatter a beam of light without using any energy at all, and the same may apply to phasers.

That could explain why drones don't have shields against physical blows; such a shield would actually have to do work, which would require energy, and do it quickly, which would require high power.

[Peptuck]

First Contact has an isolated Hive stuck in an enemy warship with limited resources and time. They are assimilating the ship in rapid order with a clear goal of taking the ship over and contacting their present selves. I can only think of 4 specific incidents where Kinetic attacks were used in First Contact.

Limited resources? Did you even look at what the Borg assembled in a few hours, without the Enterprise's crew even aware of their presence? They were already converting decks with specialized Borg gear and technology and even slapped together a specialized subspace comms array. If they can build, convert, and adapt that quickly, why couldn't they start slapping KE shields on their drones when they repeatedly suffered casualties at the hands of KE attacks?

1) Data - He is already demonstrated as being stronger than a Borg drone and adapting in that situation wasnt required. They had him cornered fairly quickly and after that they assumed he was on their side.

So, when confronted by a particularly skilled and dangerous individual whose most effective tactics against them rely of kinetic energy, they don't bother adapting to contain him, even when they are holding him prisoner.

2) Picard - Already went over this but it was an isolated incident in a completely unorthadox environment that Picard couldnt / wouldnt / didnt repeat.

That Picard didn't repeat it shows nothing, when one considers how brain-dead incompetent Starfleet is in general.

3) Worf - This one is the more damning in my opinion but in light of the fact this entire film isnt the full force of the collective and that we know for a fact different drones serve different functions it is entirely possible the drone Worf gutted was a technician rather than a combat drone assuming its not a hastily assimilated crew member which would make it even less conclusive that all Borg are vulnerable to KE attacks.

Even if the various drones Worf ginsu'd were technicians, they would still be armed and capable of defending themselves and fighting off attackers. Notice that Worf was always fighting Borg that were moving to stop the Enterprise's crew from meddling, while other drones kept doing work in the background. If anything, the most combat-capable of the drones would be intercepting the Feds, while the "technician" drones kept up work on the various fiddly bits.

4) Random Redshirt / Hand to hand - Picard had his people engage hand to hand with the Borg and we saw at the very beginning how that went for the poor sucker who tried it. They may not be as strong as Data but they obviously have strength beyond your average Federation crew member.

That's like saying that tanks are invulnerable to missile launchers because of a single instance of a missile failing to penetrate the armor.

Just because one unfortunate crew member was backhanded by a drone doesn't mean that drones are invincible in hand-to-hand combat. Worf ripped through them without much trouble, and we know that Klingon warriors are not much stronger than humans.

Overall, the need to adapt to hand to hand combat for the Borg isnt required most of the time. We have seen how they handle hand to hand in the T4 Cube. Janeway and co. got busted in rapid order

Isn't that the episode where they deliberately let themselves be assimilated?

and the fact the very cube has armor plating would suggest an attempt at adapting to kinetic attacks.

How does applying armor plating mean they are specifically trying to adapt to KE? If nything, the armor plating would be an effort to defend against phasers and torpedoes, which are the most common weapons they go up against.

[Jark]

Didn't they say in the Deep Space Nine episode with the TR-116 rifle that anyone with the replicator pattern could create one?

[NecronLord]

Didn't they say in the Deep Space Nine episode with the TR-116 rifle that anyone with the replicator pattern could create one?

Y'know, as I was writing that post, I went to the can. Thought about the super sniper rifle, then forgot to put it in. Yes, it does indeed.

[Alien-Carrot]

One thing i noticed is, when worf beat on the drone with his gun, he attacked the un-armored head. When random redshirt #5 hits a drone, he hits in in the armored sternum.

Punch someone in the head, and the neck snaps back, causing minor whiplash, or a broken neck.

Punch them in the sternum, through a kevlar vest, and you have a one in a million chance of stopping their heart.

One day some trektard will get in a real fight, and understand the difference between bat to the head, and bat to the chest.

[The Yosemite Bear]

One day a trek writer will understand conservation of momentum. (or recoil is a bitch, and a personal kenetic or other energy defector/damenor will still have to pay the cost somewhere)

[Ryan Thunder]

Purely out of curiosity, would it be possible to convert the kinetic energy into some other form, like heat?

Of course, this still leaves the momentum to be dealt with, but if the kinetic energy of the projectile is reduced sharply then it should slow down, unless I'm mistaken.