Captain Seafort wrote:Look at how far warship technology advanced between the Armada and Trafalgar. Fundamentally, not very far - they were still wooden sailing vessels with cannon firing solid metal balls propelled by gunpower. For that matter, HMS Sovereign of the Seas, had she magically been transported to Trafalgar, would have been one of the most powerful ships in Nelson's fleet, over 150 years after her launch.
And look at USS Constitution! I mean, she can totally take on a a destroyer from 1914! Just give her a good headwind.
Yeah I know what you're saying but at some point, technology outstrips her ability to be effective. Sure, the BoP is using weapons still effective against modern vessels, but had Riker paid any attention he could have turned on that BoP and blown it to hell and back. And sure, Kirk and Sulu got their asses handed to them, but only until they saw the thing. Once that happened, it was game over. It was only the ability to fire while cloaked that offered Chang any advantage. It was only learning Enterprise's shield frequency that gave them any advantage. One on one, they're going to lose. Bad.
Federation ships are supposed to be constantly upgraded and enhanced and refit to include better, newer technologies. The example earlier of the Soviet army keeping T-54 and T-55 tanks... I'm sorry, but those things are NOT as effective as a modern M1A2 Abrams, which boosts advantages such as increased speed, the ability to fire while moving, ablative armor, etc. The T-54 would need to stop moving, aim, and try to hit a moving target, putting them right in the sights of the very enemy they're trying to hit and just saying, "Oh hi! Please turn me into a scrap heap!".
Now yeah, that was the 70's, and it could be argued that the US proved you could do more with inferior tanks, given how we threw tanks at the Germans in WWII that were clearly superior. I believe many commanders complained that their shots literally bounced off the thick German armor, and they could only get penetration from the back. Yeah, I'll grant that's a similar situation, but the tanks were both considered modern variants. You didn't see any WWI tanks winning any tank battles against the Panzer now did you?
My point in all this is that the Federation shouldn't have had any reason at all for losing a straight up fight against a BoP in combat. It was Riker's ineptitude that cost them the Enterprise-D.