The size of starfleet

[Dralan]

This is likely the worst crap I have read in the last year....

I am not responsible for any insanity and/or other damage you may get from reading this.

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The size of starfleet by Graham Kennedy

Introduction

It's remarkable that more than thirty five years after the first Star Trek episode was made, there is still no clear idea on many basic issues concerning Starfleet and the Federation. One of the most talked about issues is just how many ships Starfleet counts amongst its ranks. For most of Trek history the size of the fleet was thought to be quite small, but this was kept deliberately vague so as not to tie the hands of future writers who may want to suddenly show large fleets of ships. The latter seasons of Deep Space Nine have shown that for once this policy worked just as it was supposed to!


Episode evidence

There are remarkably few direct statements regarding the size of Starfleet. or the numbers of any given class. One such comes in the TOS episode "Tomorrow is Yesterday". The Enterprise is thrown through time and space after an encounter with a "black star". The ship finds itself in Earth's atmosphere in the year 1969. Disabled and struggling to make orbit, they are intercepted by a USAF fighter. When the ship's tractor beam destroys the aircraft, they beam the pilot aboard. When the pilot, Captain Christopher, compliments Kirk on the advanced nature of the Enterprise Kirk smiles proudly and declares :
Kirk : "There are only a dozen like her in the fleet."

Some take this to mean that there were twelve constitution class ships in Starfleet, some assume that it means there are thirteen - the Enterprise and twelve more like it. The writers of TOS novels often assumed that these twelve or thirteen ships comprised the whole of Starfleet. This seems unlikely to me; given the almost bewildering array of Starship classes in use during the TNG era, it seems incredible that the fleet used only one single class of ship during TOS. The non-canon section below also lists reliable sources which indicate that there are other classes of ship in Starfleet at this time.

Evidence for the overall size of Starfleet during the TNG era is quite sketchy. In the TNG episode "Best of Both Worlds" the Federation battles a powerful alien species known as the Borg. The Federation gathers forty ships for the battle at Wolf 359, of which 39 are lost. The fact that only forty ships are assembled to face this extremely powerful foe could be taken to indicate that there are only a few dozen ships in the whole of Starfleet, but this is not necessarily so. The Federation had only a few days to gather its forces - perhaps a week at most. Even at Warp 9.6 a week would only allow those ships within about 36 light years to arrive at Wolf 359. This surely cannot represent a large fraction of Starfleet when the whole Federation spans eight thousand light years, as stated by Picard in "Star Trek : First Contact".

At the end of the episode Commander Shelby confidently declares :
Shelby : "We'll have the fleet back up in less than a year."


We see during the TNG era that ships such as the Excelsior and Miranda class can remain in service for many decades. If the Federation is capable of building in excess of thirty nine starships per year, then they could comfortably maintain a fleet of four thousand or more ships.

In the TNG episode "Redemption, Part II", the Duras family attempt to gain control of the Klingon empire. Picard, suspecting that the Romulans are supporting the Duras, gathers a fleet of Starships at the Klingon-Romulan border in order to prevent supplies from crossing. Again he has a matter of a day or two, but is able to assemble a fleet of over twenty Starships for the mission. Even if every ship in the area headed for the base at warp 9.6, a single day would only allow those ships within about 5 or 10 light years to arrive. So again we have a significant number of ships based at or around a single Starbase.

Perhaps the best indicator of the numbers in Starfleet comes during the last years of Deep Space Nine. Beginning with the fleet seen in the final scene of "Call to Arms", we frequently see dozens or hundreds of Federation ships on screen simultaneously. There are also direct statements supporting these numbers - for instance in "A Time to Stand", the seventh fleet is stated to have lost 98 of 112 ships in a battle with Dominion forces. In the episodes "Favor the Bold" and "Sacrifice of Angels" Starfleet gathers a fleet to re-take Deep Space Nine from the Dominion. They plan to use elements of the second, fifth and ninth fleets, but when the Dominion begin to dismantle the minefield preventing their reinforcements from passing through the wormhole, Starfleet must proceed to the station without the ninth fleet forces. On being intercepted by a Dominion fleet, Bashir and O'Brien report :
O'Brien : "I'm picking something up. It's a large Dominion fleet, bearing zero zero four mark zero zero nine."
Sisko : "How large?"
O'Brien : "Twelve hundred and fifty four ships."
Bashir : "They outnumber us two to one."


So the Federation fleet numbers about six hundred and twenty seven ships. Since this is composed of 'elements' of two full fleets, then each element should average about three hundred ships. Which would mean that an entire fleet could easily be several times this number, or about 600 - 900 ships. The highest fleet number we have heard of is the tenth. Ten fleets with 112 ships each would indicate 1,120 ships in the whole of Starfleet. If a figure of 600 - 900 is more representative of the average, then Starfleet would have in the region of 6,000 - 9,000 ships. And bear in mind just because the tenth fleet is the highest we have heard of, this is no proof that there are not eleven, or eleven hundred for that matter.

An even better bit of evidence comes in the episode "Tacking Into the Wind". The Breen have developed an energy disrupting weapon which can completely disable Federation and Romulan vessels with a single hit. Fortunately, in the first battle in which the weapon is used a single Klingon vessel proves to be immune to it because of a small modification to its deflector system made shortly before. General Matrok says that he has ordered the entire Klingon fleet to be modified in the same way. Then the following dialogue takes place :
Martok : "By tomorrow, we'll have fifteen hundred Klingon vessels ready for deployment."
Romulan : "With the Breen, the Cardassians and the Jem'Hadar, you're still outnumbered twenty to one."


This proves beyond any doubt that even after almost two years of all out warfare the Klingon fleet still numbers at least 1,500 ships - possibly many more, since this is only the number of ships that will have that particular modification by the next day - and that the combined enemy forces numbers at least 30,000. Since the Klingon, Federation, Romulan and (eventually) Cardassian forces were predicting that that could defeat the Dominion and Breen fleet in the final episode "What You Leave Behind", then the allies must have been fielding fleets in the thousands to tens of thousands at least.


Bases

In considering the number of ships, it is also worthwhile to consider the number of space stations. It seems certain that the number of bases run by Starfleet cannot be significantly greater than the number of ships - if anything it should be the other way around, each base should support several or more Starships.
Stations are named in several ways in Star Trek; most Starbases receive simple numbers. During TOS we heard of Starbase 2, 4, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 27. It is by no means certain that Starbases 1, 3, 5, 7, 8 and 13-26 also existed, though this seems likely. But even if the eight named Starbases are all that existed in TOS, it seems unlikely that they would support a fleet of only twelve ships between them! And this is before we consider Deep Space Station K-7, which implies the existence of K-1 to K-6 at the very least.

During TNG we heard numbers for fifty three numbered Starbases, ranging from Starbase 12 through to Starbase 718. We also heard of Starbase Earhart, Starbase G-6, Starbase Lya III, Xendi Starbase 9 Starbase 39-Sierra and Starbase Montgomery. The latter imply the existence of up to six completely separate naming systems for Starbases. Given that there could be upwards of seven hundred bases identified only by numbers, the total number of all bases could easily be well into the thousands!

DS9 did not extend the upper limit of Starbase numbers, but did fill in some of the gaps with Starbase 41, 53, 63, 137, 201, 257, 375, 401 and 621. Since Voyager never mentioned a Starbase, this brings the total of numbered Starbases for all series to seventy one. Together with the six non-numbered Starbases in TNG, that gives us a total of seventy six Starbases mentioned in all of Trek.

And these are just the facilities specifically identified as Starbases. We have not yet considered Spacedock, the giant station seen in "Star Trek III : The Search for Spock", Epsilon IX seen in "Star Trek : The Motion Picture", the Deep Space Stations, or the sundry other bases and facilities seen throughout the series.

The vital question regarding Starbases is that of how they are named. The numbers tend to be low in TOS and higher in TNG; this at least implies that they are assigned chronologically, i.e. the base completed this week is 510, next week's is 511, the week after is 512, etc. There is no particular reason to suppose that Starfleet would skip numbers, so we are led to the conclusion that Starfleet operates at least seven hundred and eighteen starbases during the TNG era. Possibly several times this number, depending on how the names are assigned to those stations which do not fit the number pattern.

There is no way to know for sure just what the ratio of ships to Starbases is, but some episodes give us hints. The episode "Court Martial" features several scenes set in Starbase 11, including some in the Commander's office. On the wall there is a chart showing the progress of maintenance work on the ships in dock there. The chart shows NCC numbers rather than names, but there are ten ships listed on the chart. So there are at least this many ships in this particular Starbase at this moment.

If truly believe that Starfleet has some thirty Starbases in Kirk's time rising to upwards of seven hundred in TNG, then there would certainly have been some three hundred or more Starships in TOS and seven thousand or more in TNG.


Ncc Numbers

Another way to judge the number of Starships is via NCC numbers. The Enterprise's NCC 1701 has become legendary, but every ship has an individual number. NCC numbers tend to jump around somewhat, but like Starbase numbers they do generally go upwards over time. During TOS the lowest number seen was NCC 1017, the USS Constellation seen in "The Doomsday Machine", while the highest was NCC 1764, the Defiant seen in "The Tholian Web". The Advanced Starship Excelsior seen in "Star Trek III : The Search for Spock" had the number NX 2000, later to become NCC 2000 in "Star Trek VI : The Undiscovered Country" when the vessel was in service. Most other Excelsior class ships have numbers in the 30 - 40000 range, although there are some as high as 50446. The later Ambassador class, of which the Enterprise-C is a member, mostly have NCC numbers in the 26000s (though at least two including the USS Ambassador itself are in the region of 10521). The later Nebula class are in the 60 - 70000 range, the Galaxy class tend to be around 71000, while the recent Intrepid class number in the 74000s.
If NCC numbers are broadly chronological, then as with the Starbase numbering system there is no real reason to suppose large gaps have been left in the numbering sequence. This would point to the highest figure yet for Starfleet numbers, with some seventeen hundred ships built in total for Starfleet by the TOS era, rising to over seventy four thousand during TNG. While it could be assumed that many of the ships would have been long since retired, this is not necessarily so - for instance the USS Repulse was established as still being in service when Dr. Pulaski transferred to the Enterprise-D from there in 2365, yet it has the low number of NCC 2544. So it's perfectly possible that most of the ships built in Starfleet history are still in service.

A fleet so large at first seems to strain credibility, but in fact it would fit some aspects of canon quite well. We know from Picard's statement in "Star Trek : First Contact" that the Federation is spread across eight thousand light years. If we take the Federation to be a fairly solid block of space of this size - a common image is of something like an octopus with a central core and tentacles or even disconnected chunks of territory radiating out from it, thus allowing species like the Klingons to be much closer than 4,000 light years to the core - then ships on the outer fringe would be some ten years away from the core worlds at the normal cruise speed of Warp factor 6 (TNG scale), or two years away at the really high speed of Warp 9.6. Indeed, if we assumed a cylindrical Federation 3,000 light years thick (the approximate thickness of the galaxy where Earth is) and 8,000 light years across, then some 75% of it would lie more than 5 years travel from the core at TNG Warp 6. So no massive fleet could ever be gathered to fend off the Borg, unless they were kind enough to send a decade or so of warning.

The above figures are an only an approximation which make no attempt to accomodate an octopus-shaped Federation, but if we are looking at significant territories lying thousands of light years away then it is always going to take years to gather any significant percentage of Starfleet. This figure is important, because there has been only one crisis in all of Trek history in which the Federation did indeed get this kind of lead time on a crisis - the Dominion war. It was three years between the loss of the USS Odyssey and the start of the Dominion war, and the war itself lasted two years. And it was for this crisis that we first saw fleets comprising hundreds upon hundreds of ships. On the admittedly rough calculations above, the Federation could gather 17,000 ships of a 70,000 ship fleet within five years - just the kind of force that would be needed to have any chance of defeating the 30,000 ships the Dominion was known to have in the latter stages of the war.


Non Canon

The book "The Making of Star Trek" by Stephen E. Whitfield contains considerable detail about the original series. The author had access to the production crew and included several passages describing aspects of Star Trek technology and Starfleet. It includes the following direct quotation from Gene Roddenberry :
"In addition to the twelve starships, there are lesser classes of vessels, capable of operating over much more limited distances."

Note that during TOS, the Enterprise and her sisters were thought of by the writers as "Starship class" vessels. This is what is on the dedication plaque of the original Enterprise :


http://www.ditl.org/Gengrafix/plaque-e.gif

No other vessels were considered to be Starships during TOS, even if they were interstellar vessels. Later we would see the term Starship applied to the USS Reliant in "Star Trek II : The Wrath of Khan", and from this point on the term Starship becomes a generic tag for any large Federation interstellar vessel.
So during TOS, the writers thought of Starfleet as consisting of twelve (not thirteen, according to the quote) large long range vessels dubbed "Starships", plus some an unspecified number of smaller, less capable of vessels which were not considered to be Starships.

Another book written with the co-operation and support of Gene Roddenberry was the Star Fleet Technical Manual by Franz Joseph. Gene would later have something of a falling out with Mr. Joseph, and moved Trek in a direction that over-ruled much of the information in the book. But the Tech Manual remains a window into Gene's thinking during the period immediately after the original series.

The book describes the Constitution class ships as "Class I heavy cruisers" and as "Mark IX class" ships. It claims that there were four production runs of these ships. The first was of fourteen ships, the second sixteen the third of four ships and the fourth an impressive one hundred and eleven ships. See my article on "The Constitutions" for more detail.

The book also describes other classes of ship - fifty six single nacelled Saladin class destroyers are listed, as are forty single nacelled scouts and one hundred and forty twin nacelled transport/tugs. The TOS TM later fell out of favour with Roddenberry and has been contradicted by canon several times - indeed, some claim that the very concept of canon was created purely in order to rule this book out of consideration. Nevertheless, since Roddenberry did cooperate with the writing of the book it remains an important window into his thinking at the time of the original series, and as such could be considered as further evidence that Starfleet was intended to be much larger than eight Starbases and twelve ships.

In the TNG era there are Technical Manuals for DS9 and TNG. The TNG manual indicates that six Galaxy class vessels were built by Starfleet, with a further six partially built and then mothballed, so that they could be completed quickly in case of emergency. Ron D. Moore, a writer and producer who worked on TNG, DS9 and briefly on Voyager, is often quoted as stating that a figure of eight thousand ships for the TNG era fleet seemed "about right", though I am unable to find any source for this quotation. However, in an online discussion the following exchange did take place with Mr. Moore :
Question : "At the end of last year, you stated that there were officially two other Defiant-class ships operating in Starfleet. This is obvious because during the final flick in "A Call to Arms", we could clearly see two other Defiant class ships other than the Defiant... My question to you is, how many Defiant-class ships are now operating in Starfleet? (other than the Valiant which, kinda died.)"
Moore : "We don't have an official number, but we presume there are at least a few dozen at this point."


To produce this many of a single class in such a short time would certainly indicate a fairly formidable Starship production capacity for the whole Federation, pointing to a fleet numbering in the thousands. This is certainly in line with the number of ships seen during the last few years of Deep Space Nine, as discussed earlier.


Conclusion

During TOS it seems certain that there were twelve Constitution class Starships, plus an unspecified number of smaller vessels. The total fleet size is uncertain, but likely to be from one hundred to several hundred. The largest fleet we ever see in TOS was the five Starships gathered for the M5 test program wargame, which would have represented a very powerful force indeed - almost half of all the Starships (as opposed to smaller interstellar ships) in existence. Put another way, it represents roughly the same percentage of the Federation's total firepower as the six aircraft carriers that the USA sent to Iraq for the gulf war.
During TNG the fleet must be considerably larger. The sensible lower limit is 1,000 Starships in total, while 5 - 10,000 is much more likely. A 70,000 Starship fleet seems high, but this becomes much more reasonable if the Federation really does cover a solid block of space eight thousand light years across. Under these conditions only a few thousand ships would normally be present at the core of the Federation; assembling a fleet of several dozen ships would take a few days, while assembling the thousands or tens of thousands needed for a major war could take anything up to several years. This is an excellent fit for an 8,000 light year wide Federation with some 70,000 ships distributed more or less randomly across it.

[Cpt_Frank]

The gross exagaration of a generic trekkie.
Nonetheless, it is relatively irrelevant if the fed has 1000 ships an ISD can kill with one shot or 70000.
Btw, I like the way he concludes and rationalizes, it's so stupid and illogical.
It boggles the mind, how deep one can burry his head in his ass.

[Meghel]

Since this is composed of 'elements' of two full fleets, then each element should average about three hundred ships. Which would mean that an entire fleet could easily be several times this number, or about 600 - 900 ships.

Is this guy not even considering the possibility that the "elements" going into battle are probably the main fleet elements.

because of a small modification to its deflector system made shortly before

This proves beyond any doubt that even after almost two years of all out warfare the Klingon fleet still numbers at least 1,500 ships - possibly many more, since this is only the number of ships that will have that particular modification by the next day -

Oh man, this is unbelievable. First he says that it is a small modification, and then he says that it is unlikely that most Klingon vessels will have that particular modification by tomorrow.

Hey, if it is a small conversion, it might be easy to modify many Klingon ships.

Another way to judge the number of Starships is via NCC numbers. The Enterprise's NCC 1701 has become legendary, but every ship has an individual number.

Oh man, this is making me laugh out loud!!!

Now lets compare this to the Dutch Navy ship below.
http://fleet.hotusa.org/f812rv1.jpg
This ship has the code F812.
Now, by applying the logic of Kennedy, this would signify that the NATO (which I consider to be the organization distributing the numbers, and NOT the Dutch Navy) Forces have built 6 X 812 ships at the very least = 4872 ships.

Graham Kenedy "forgets" that experimental and "drawing board" vessels usually also receive a number, if it were only for the archiving.
This number is then added, resulting in the use of number but NOT in the construction of the actual vessel(s).

The Advanced Starship Excelsior seen in "Star Trek III : The Search for Spock" had the number NX 2000, later to become NCC 2000 in "Star Trek VI : The Undiscovered Country" when the vessel was in service.

Most other Excelsior class ships have numbers in the 30 - 40000 range, although there are some as high as 50446.

The later Nebula class are in the 60 - 70000 range, the Galaxy class tend to be around 71000, while the recent Intrepid class number in the 74000s.

Wow, according to this school of though, Star Fleet has built over 30.000 ships after constructing the first Excelsior to the last one Graham tells us about.

Beside the fact that most Star Fleet vessels (considering that they did not build 20.000 Exelsiors) are probably old, non-upgradable (economically; Exelsiors might be economically adaptable) or not combat unworthy (Hey, we are talking about the Science-Heavy UFP here), this figure is highly suspect.

And then there is the sudden lapse in ship-building capacity of the Federation; "Only" 3000 ships between the galaxy and the Interprid.

If NCC numbers are broadly chronological

No Proof, only circumstatial evidence.

And these are just the facilities specifically identified as Starbases. We have not yet considered Spacedock, the giant station seen in "Star Trek III : The Search for Spock", Epsilon IX seen in "Star Trek : The Motion Picture", the Deep Space Stations, or the sundry other bases and facilities seen throughout the series.

What he seems to omit from this sentence, is that perhaps those "suntry other bases" and "facilities" might also be clasified as starbases.
There is no proof that this isn't the case.

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I find it a very nice article and it has been in fact thoroughly thought about. The only problem is that GK makes assumptions which are impossible to prove.

Meghel

[Dark Primus]

According to Rick Sternbach and Brannon Braga Federation has between 8,000-12,000 starships. Not included shuttles or fighters.

I bet only half of those ships can be taken to be warships.

[Mr Bean]

I'll say it once I'll say it agian
If one enemy who's crusing in to DESTROY YOUR HQ and the best you can summon is 40 ships, And you loose 98% of them, indicats so what?

Until the Defiant Class we don't realy see *Battle-ships, more or less we see very fast Recon situated Frigtis style in the Sovergin-Class and the Enterpizes.

Anywhoo the statment was quite correct if they out-number us two to one, And considering the Smallness of Federation space, 1000 pretty much is near or about the actual figure of ships avaible

[arctic_series]

one other thing. in ST they actually include fighters in the ship count.

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

There is a 89th airborn division. There are not 88 other airborn divisions.

[Stravo]

quote:
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Since this is composed of 'elements' of two full fleets, then each element should average about three hundred ships. Which would mean that an entire fleet could easily be several times this number, or about 600 - 900 ships.
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This 600-900 number is pulled STRAIGHT from Kennedy's ASS. How does he know how many ships constitute elements of a fleet, it could be that they left with 80% of the fleet or as few as 20%. Could be that all other ships in the fleet were in drydock or destroyed. This is such an assanine analysis. At every turn he flings number out there like a monkey throwing shit, HOPING that they make sense.

Every single time Starfleet needs ships in an emergency they always come up short ie. Wolf 359. As Mr. Beans stated: Earth is thretaned, you have a few DAYS and the best you can come up with is 39 ships?! Even BETTER example: V'ger is coming to earth, it destroyed a Klingon task force and a Starbase and the ONLY ship is the Eneterprise AND she is in the middle of a major refit???? So....I guess there weren't any other starships out of the THOUSANDS out there to come save poor old Earth? The Breen manage to launch a raid on SF HQ....WHERE THE HELL ARE THE THOUSANDS OF SHIPS??? The Breen have no cloaking devices, so they could have been seen coming from lightyears away....it takes time to warp from the frontlines to Earth so the Breen were chugging along unmolested until they reached Earth. One word DISGUSTING. Earth has to be the most poorly defended world in the history of Sci Fi:roll:

ST II: WOK The Enterprise, a training ship mind you is the ONLY ship in the quadrant when it comes time to investigate what happened at one of the most top secret labs in the Federation developing a wonder device that can build worlds and NO starships are in range or even in orbit to keep security....I'm sure they could spare one or two out of a fleet of THOUSANDS.

[SCVN 2812]

So where exactly is the proof that fighters are included in fleet counts? I have routinely seen people arguing against a massive Starfleet bring up this point but they never say where they got it or what their proof is.

Based on the Cardassian Union's fleet production numbers in the DS9 TM, I agree with the 8,000-12,000 figure. Especially, considering that many of the ships we've seen have operational lifetimes of 50 years or more. If this is true for most ships in Starfleet then we can establish a high end figure for their fleet: 17,500 starships, which would mostly be capital ships since shuttles don't receive NCC numbers so there's no reason to assume fighters would either and that's further backed up since there unlike most other ships we don't see any NCC numbers prominently displayed on the fighter like it would be on a capital ship. Very few of these ships would be pure science vessels because most Federation ships are built for deep space exploration which, especially in the ST galaxy, is a dangerous at best mission, so most ships are designed to be effective in combat and not just science.

[His Divine Shadow]

the 8,000-12,000 figure is mentioned by the two head morons, B&B, and they do run the show, so I am inclined to go with that one.
Besides with 8k LY's and slowass warpdrive, they need many ships.

[Admiral Piett]

This is my opinion.

TOS era.
12 Constitutions class ships and a few others in construction.Common sense,if anything,dictates that they should have at least a few tens of lesser warships:frigates,probably.

TMPera.
A few tens of warships.Mirandas,refitted Constitutions,maybe even something else.

TNG era.
Roughly 4000 "warships".More if count the fighters.

Before making lower estimates keep in mind their slow warp drive and their commitment to scientific research/exploration.These two factors make quickly gathering a large fleet very difficult.
Many of those 4000 ships are probably months away in a normal situation.Many others are barely serviceable relics like the Miranda class.
Keep also in mind that concentrating too many defenses around Earth might be difficult from a political point of view.Others members planets could claim that they deserve an adequate protection,leaving few ships to patrol borders and for exploration.

[Stravo]

Keep also in mind that concentrating too many defenses around Earth might be difficult from a political point of view.Others members planets could claim that they deserve an adequate protection,leaving few ships to patrol borders and for exploration.

Considering that earth has been a target so often by the enemy including aliens such as V'ger wouldn't it be of tacical if not strategic neccessity to keep a small defensive fleet within a few hours warp of Earth, for christ's sake the HQ of your fleet is on that world and it is obvious that the Borg consider Earth a prime target....what conceivable political neccessity would keep the Federation from protecting earth????

[TheDarkling]

I think they have learnt their lesson - in endgame the Feds gather a fleet of 20 odd starships in about 5 minutes, so this shows that defending Earth has become a consideration.

[NecronLord]

They have leant from their mistakes. and possibly keep a few ships on station in the solar system. Also please note that their weapons did diddly squat to that sphere, these could well have been partially under-construction/refit ships.

[Stravo]

Another example that occurs to me is from ST III. The Genesis planet is considered off limits, thus no ships allowed in the system...how do you usually enforce this order? A blockade. Yet at no time are there ANY starships blockading the system, Kirk in a STOLEN starship waltzes over the Genesis system without any problem. (BTW NEED I talk about the stealing the Enterprise scene? No ships at the MAIN STABASE to stop a starship from being stolen save an experimental starship (Excelsior)) Hmmm...that massive Starfleet is looking MIGHTY tiny.

What did the Federation think, that if they just declared Genesis off limits no one would go and everyone would simpy comply? McCoy certainly seemed to think that a CIVILIAN transport could get there without any problem. So...atthe time of the movies, do they even have a fleet large enough to blockade a SINGLE system???

[Admiral Piett]

Considering that earth has been a target so often by the enemy including aliens such as V'ger wouldn't it be of tacical if not strategic neccessity to keep a small defensive fleet within a few hours warp of Earth, for christ's sake the HQ of your fleet is on that world and it is obvious that the Borg consider Earth a prime target....what conceivable political neccessity would keep the Federation from protecting earth????[/quote]

First of all in the TNG era a small fleet IS around earth,albeit not necessarily assigned there.40 ships is a reasonable number in peacetime,at least from their point of view.Keep in mind that around Earth there is not much to do,no scientific exploration,no borders to patrol.So why keep many ships there when they could be months away exploring boring gasous anomalies?
And yes, V'Ger was 80 years before TNG.Frankly I would not be surprised if they did not think that something similar could happen again.Even modern militaries have similar ideas.
For political reasons I had in mind this scenario:starfleet deploy a hundred of ships around earth.The betazoids/Orions/insert-an-other-name start to scream that they want the same protection or otherwise they will secede and use their own resources to build their own defensive fleet.I hope you get the picture.
With their priorities the blanket is simply too much short.4000 starships may seem many,but like the 300 ships of the US Navy in reality they barely suffice.
Scientific research,diplomatic meetings,exploration,border patrol and God only know how many others tasks they have to fulfil.That is a lot of work.
Incidentally this gives me an idea to explain why their ships look like luxury liners and some carry families.But I will explain in a separate thread.

[Patrick Ogaard]

The closest real world analogy to the situation that Starfleet is in would be England in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Military travel times to remote trouble spots could be weeks or even a month or two, but many of the major rival powers (particularly France and Germany) had their power bases and fleets within easy striking distance of England.

Therefore, the Home Fleet was an essential part of British naval strategy. It was necessary to keep sufficient naval forces close to home in order to discourage rash action by other powers.

Since the Utopia Planitia shipyards appear to be the strategic heart of Federation starship development and production, and Earth happens to be the capital world of the Federation, not to mention the home of Starfleet Command and all of Starfleet's future major personnel, Earth's system is a natural strategic target. A permanent orbital fleet base in Earth orbit would be a natural home for part of the Home Fleet, with detachments stationed at Mars and Jupiter as well as in adjoining systems no more than a day or two away at high warp (say 8 to 9). If each detachment and the fleet base averaged only six starships, that would be dozens of starships available for defense almost at a moment's notice. Also, since the starships would be primarily designed for military use, they could be more heavily armed and protected than their general-use counterparts.


The apparent paucity of easily available Starfleet assets is also supported by numerous incidents in canon, such as 6 starships being considered a major taskforce against hundreds of Klingon ships. There is also the odd comment in the DS9 episode "Change of Heart" that justifies sending Worf and Dax out in the last available runabout to contact a Cardassian intel source. Kira states that Worf and Dax have to go --taking the last runabout-- since most of the runabouts are out on exercises with the 9th Fleet. Why exactly would glorified shuttles, that have been all but eaten for lunch by Jem'hadar fighters in canon, be significant enough to be engaging in military exercises with a presumably large fleet of warships? Their only uses would seem to be as couriers or target drones.

[Stravo]

First of all in the TNG era a small fleet IS around earth,albeit not necessarily assigned there.40 ships is a reasonable number in peacetime,at least from their point of view.Keep in mind that around Earth there is not much to do,no scientific exploration,no borders to patrol.So why keep many ships there when they could be months away exploring boring gasous anomalies?

I'm not sure that that point is exactly true...they had several DAYS and it was pretty clear that the 40 ships were called form as far away as possible to haul ass to earth. Its obviuous from the near panic during Halsey's speech to Picard that Starfleet simply was not ready. The ONLY defensive fleet in the ENTIRE Sol system are a handful of drones that the Brog handled ion three seconds of screen time.

And yes, V'Ger was 80 years before TNG.Frankly I would not be surprised if they did not think that something similar could happen again.Even modern militaries have similar ideas.
For political reasons I had in mind this scenario:starfleet deploy a hundred of ships around earth.The betazoids/Orions/insert-an-other-name start to scream that they want the same protection or otherwise they will secede and use their own resources to build their own defensive fleet.I hope you get the picture.

I do get the picture, the Federation is willing to sacrifice the industrial and military heart of the Federation because member worlds would balk....GREAT militray strategy there folks. Thats like the German army not stationing troops in the Ruhr because Bavaria might protest.

With their priorities the blanket is simply too much short.4000 starships may seem many,but like the 300 ships of the US Navy in reality they barely suffice.

Thats the point I have been banging away at, there simply aren't enough starships, Starfleet is simply not prepared for a major military incursion on their space. When hundreds of Klingon ships attcaked DS9, a supposidly VITAL station, the best they could come up with was 8 starships HOURS away....

When the Dominion fleet engaged the station, BTW seizing the only choke point in tthe ENTIRE galaxy for their fleet...Starfleet sent NO ships, instead opting to put all its eggs in one basket for a strike against A SINGLE shipyard...Did we notice any appreciable drop in Dominion ship construction during the war???? NO. In fact, the Dominion was outproducing the ENTIRE alliance up until the very end. So what did this brilliant strategic stroke gain them??? They lost the only route the Dominion had into their galaxy for a wrecked shipyard that did not impact on the war effort AT ALL....Gotta love Starfleet, BRILLAINT strategists one and all.

Scientific research,diplomatic meetings,exploration,border patrol and God only know how many others tasks they have to fulfil.That is a lot of work.
Incidentally this gives me an idea to explain why their ships look like luxury liners and some carry families.But I will explain in a separate thread.

Considering how many military actions the Feds have been involved in during the years WHY is the Defiant the first dedicated warship in its fleet???
Cruiseliners with families...that is BRILLAINT when you're patrolling the neutral zone.

Mind you this rant is not an attack against anyone per se, but against B&B's utter evisceration of ST AND those that think that the Federation represents a sane and normal government whoch seems to routinely fail that first responsibility of any governemnt, protect your citizens...

[Admiral Piett]

For the analogy I was referring to certain strange ideas that sometimes militaries have,for example "We will not do amphibious landings" which explain why the royal marines did not have decent landing equipments during the war of the Falklands.
Remember also that they do not consider themselves a real military.
During the Dominion war their fleet was probably decimated.So they needed even runabouts.

[Admiral Piett]

In my opinion probably a portion of those 40 ships were in maintenance/construction at Utopia Planitia.Probably all the ships at the shipyard that could be made at least partially operational in few days were sent against the Borg (think to the french battleship Jean Bart in WW2 for an analogy).
Few others,maybe three or four,were docked at Spacedock.The others were
in the nearby star systems or around the solar system,coming or leaving.

[Master of Ossus]

I guess that I should point out that the fleet in "Sacrifice of Angels" that he talks about as having 600 ships counted starfighters (Peregrine fighters), and that they were counting the Jem'Hadar fighters as ships. When Bashir talked about the fleet that suffered 98 of 112 ships as casualties, he was almost certainly only talking about the large ships and not counting the starfighters. Thus, 112 ships can still be considered a reasonable estimate for the number of ships in SF fleets, with a few hundred starfighters as support.

When he talks about Martok ordering 1500 Klingon ships to be modified, we should also remember that the Breen fleet was COMPLETELY fresh at this point, having taken no significant losses, and that Sisko and the others were almost certainly counting the Jem'Hadar and Cardassian fighters that were dancing around when they made that infamous 20 to 1 statement. Since the Klingons were able to effectively hold the combined fleets of the Federation's enemies for a considerable length of time, we should be able to conclude that fighters were being counted, or else we must accept the conclusion that the Dominion was COMPLETELY inept, strategically. That does not seem to be the intent of the show, and some Dominion officers seemed reasonably competent (Dukat, Dumar, to some extent Weyoun). Clearly, the 20 to 1 ship estimate was not a 20 to 1 strength estimate. Klingon ships seem substantially more powerful than Cardassian and Breen ships, as well as Jem'Hadar fighters.

[Doomriser]

Many of the ships delpoyed to counter the Borg were not even true warships. Many of them were either experimental kitbashes, museum pieces, and even science ships! In addition, the largest ship there initially, before the Enterprise, was a Nebula-class. So you have 2 or 3 Nebula-class ships, a bunch of barely servicible hulks, and some small frigates defending Earth. Also it was made clear in "Conspiracy," [TNG] that it is unusual for a starship to return to Earth. So most of Starfleet is out on patrol, scientific, or exploration missions while Earth is defended by a floating scrap heap. But by "Endgame," Starfleet clearly has finally stationed a proper defensive force around Earth.

[Doomriser]

In the TNG episode "Redemption, Part II", the Duras family attempt to gain control of the Klingon empire. Picard, suspecting that the Romulans are supporting the Duras, gathers a fleet of Starships at the Klingon-Romulan border in order to prevent supplies from crossing. Again he has a matter of a day or two, but is able to assemble a fleet of over twenty Starships for the mission. Even if every ship in the area headed for the base at warp 9.6, a single day would only allow those ships within about 5 or 10 light years to arrive. So again we have a significant number of ships based at or around a single Starbase.

LOL! So they have 20 ships based around a Starbase on the Romulan border. One WOULD expect Starfleet to have a MUCH higher concentration of starships on the freaking Romulan border than anywhere else.

[TheDarkling]

Doomriser: It wasnt the Romulan - Federation border it was he Romulan - Klingon border.
Its not a huge shock that they dont keep a huge fleet by klingon space - that might annoy the Klingons.

[Doomriser]

Really? Then the fleet should have been even larger! That location would be a MAJOR flashpoint for conflicts.