The Aircraft Image Posting Contest

[discord]

yup, all other ships in starfleet is 'theoretically' civilian ships, and they have civilian aspects and uses but usually solidly built with a hostile environment in mind.

but the defiant class is the first true 'warship' in starfleet, where even the lip service that it is anything else was tossed out.
examples.
enterprise-E large staterooms for everyone with families, defiant double bunking closets.
enterprise university level medical facilities with R'n'D capacity, defiant has a first aid station.
weapon and defensive systems....almost equal despite HUGE difference in size.
mobility hugely in favor of defiant.

and finally if the above are not enough, there are CIVILIANS on enterprise crew rooster, only military on defiant.

[Karst45]

The enterprise (in the new generation) was a galaxie class. an science vessel, so comparing a science vessel to a dedicated warship dont make sense
If your comparing the Enterprise from the original serie, Well at that time line most starship were patrol and colony support ship.

The enterprise NX from the serie of the same name, was one of the first starship, they quickly become an support/escort ship at the edge of being a warship. And that only because it need to fill the role the situation required.

[Fotiadis_110]

Karst: based on what you say the ship was built for that purpose, to be able to adapt to whatever role was required, civilian, research, military, education, diplomacy and so forth.
Such a ship is not a purpose built warship in the first place, instead the craft is a multi-purpose star-ship capable of taking whatever role it needed as the situation changed.

So arguably the whole 'Dauntless as first true warship' idea is sound, as all other classes are adaptable, but a Dauntless would make a poor research ship even if you tried to make the refit possible, and as such when outside of wartime it represents a fairly poor ship in a general sense as it is less useful in other tasks than shooting other guys.

[javcs]

The NX-01 Enterprise was initially an armed exploration ship - and a prototype/testbed vessel as well. Not a dedicated warship, although as the series progressed it received multiple upgrades to its combat abilities.

The NCC-1701 Enterprise from TOS was a Constitution class. The Connies were ... heavy cruisers, with a hefty dose of multirole capability as well - "ongoing 5-year mission of exploration" and all that. They're one of the heavy combatants of their time - nominally a match for any Klingon warship of their era in a stand-up engagement, and generally outmatching the Romulan warships of the time in a stand-up engagement.

The NCC-1701-A Enterprise was a refitted Constitution. The refits are/were sometimes called Enterprise class. However, largely identical purpose and role as the original Constitutions. They're one of the heavy combatants of their time - nominally a match for any Klingon warship of their era in a stand-up engagement, and generally outmatching the Romulan warships of the time in a stand-up engagement.

The NCC-1701-B Enterprise was an Excelsior class. Might have been a modified Excelsior, can't remember for sure. The Excelsior class was basically a the next step up from an Constitution(refit or otherwise) - designed taking into account the experiences had with the Constitutions. Largely similar role and purpose as the Constitutions, with some improvements in combat capabilities, and the attendant bonuses, upgrade, and benefits inherent in being a design 20?+ years younger/newer than the Constitution. They're one of the heavy combatants of their time - nominally superior to any Klingon warship of their era in a stand-up engagement, and generally outmatching the Romulan warships of the time in a stand-up engagement.

The NCC-1701-C Enterprise was an Ambassador class. Ambassadors are basically one of intermediary steps between the Excelsior and the Galaxy classes, though the Ambassador is the one immediately prior to the Galaxy. Again, multi-role, exploration, science, and diplomatic needs, while being a heavy combatant. Nominally equal or superior to equal numbers of any Klingon or Romulan warship of their time; generally considered somewhat superior to Cardassian warships of the time.

The NCC-1701-D Enterprise was a Galaxy class. The Galaxy is/was, at the time of their introduction, arguably the single most powerful combatant in explored/known space, outmatching any Klingon, Romulan, or Cardassian warship of the time under normal conditions. The Galaxy was, again, not a dedicated warship, but also a multi-role ship with exploration, science, and diplomatic purposes - and the families of crew members onboard.

The NCC-1701-E Enterprise is a Sovereign class. The Sovereign class was designed roughly at the same time the Defiant class was. However, while the Defiant was designed as an 'escort' - it was not designed as a long-range, long duration exploration ship. The Defiant class, apparently, has landing gear - designed for landing in StarBase docking bays. The Defiant was not designed to be a flagship - the Defiant was designed to fight the Borg threat, and was designed with few other roles.


The Constitution, Excelsior, Ambassador, Galaxy, and Sovereign classes all held approximately the same roles in the fleet at the time of their designs and introductions. None of them were designed solely as dedicated warships - although with the design of the Sovereign class, combat functions became far more important, thanks to the awareness of the Borg threat.

A Constitution could execute General Order Number 24? I think it's GO.24 - which is the directive to destroy a world - in a matter of hours.
When you can do that and carry a large amount of materials and equipment suitable for other needs, transforming your ship into a capable multi-role vessel without significant negative impacts upon your combat capabilities - and if your environment is such that multi-role functionality is more relevant than pure combat capability, what reason do you use to justify dedicated warships instead of multi-role vessels? You can't, barring a new threat that drastically changes the anticipated threat environment.

When your technical capabilities and resource base permit generalist ships, and your political and threat environment means you don't need much in the way of dedicated warships, and instead generalist capabilities are considered 'more important', well ... you build the best combat ships you can in conjunction with the generalist capabilities, until something changes the environment and peoples' minds about fleet needs.
Something like encountering the Borg, and then the Dominion.


Enterprise-E would hand the Defiant its ass in a fight. Ent-E is a larger vessel, with more powerful shields, heavier armor, more torp launchers (and deeper magazines), with more, and more powerful, phaser banks (though Defiant has its forward pulse phasers).


Starfleet ships aren't 'civilian' by any definition I am aware of. However .. the ones the series focus on tend to be the generalist types, because that's the kind of series that they are. And, then of course, there's Rodenberry's rule that the solution is never supposed to be purely violence, but rather that trickery, cleverness, and diplomacy are supposed to be the solutions.

[NOMAD]

very well said javcs,

the point is resolve ( i believe)

but just a question, Voyage was an interpid class vessal, I believe it was a short range explore type ? or am i wrong ?

[javcs]

very well said javcs,

the point is resolve ( i believe)

but just a question, Voyage was an interpid class vessal, I believe it was a short range explore type ? or am i wrong ?

The Intrepid class was ... a light cruiser? Not short ranged, but not designed as a long ranged/duration ship (ie, not designed for the '5-year mission of exploration') either ... more of an intermediate grade of ship. Perhaps more akin to a 'modern' equivalent of a Miranda class, aka the Reliant from Wrath of Khan, although since Mirandas were fielded in the Dominion war, that may not be the best comparison.
And, of course, there's the brilliance of sending it out while not fully equipped, crewed, or supplied.

In the Equinox episodes, we see an example of a a Nova class, which were 'surveyors' - that's a relatively short-ranged ship.

[bunnyboy]

In shortly, Enterprice is Mary Sue class, no matter whitch era it is.

[javcs]

In shortly, Enterprice is Mary Sue class, no matter whitch era it is.

How so?

[Karst45]

So arguably the whole 'Dauntless as first true warship' idea is sound, as all other classes are adaptable, but a Dauntless would make a poor research ship even if you tried to make the refit possible, and as such when outside of wartime it represents a fairly poor ship in a general sense as it is less useful in other tasks than shooting other guys.

It the Defiant but still

Am not saying the Defiant is not a warship or not the first dedicated warship, what i was saying all along and tryed to bring back on track is that Starfleet have other warship, they just are too shy to call them warship and refer to them as "tactical" or "escort"

[Karst45]

In shortly, Enterprice is Mary Sue class, no matter whitch era it is.

am inclined to agree... but Mary sue dont tend to die... but the enterprise "died" 4 time (A-B-C-D)

[junk]

In shortly, Enterprice is Mary Sue class, no matter whitch era it is.

am inclined to agree... but Mary sue dont tend to die... but the enterprise "died" 4 time (A-B-C-D)

Oh mary sues do die from time to time. But only heroic and tragic deaths

[discord]

voyageR is a intrepid class, yes, designed for long range exploration, pretty much the ideal ship to be dropped off half way across the galaxy in.

javcs: enterprise-E would probably win, with about 75% vs 25% probability yes, but with a 685 meters long sovereign class vs 120 defiant, there is a HUGE difference in size comparable to BB vs CL or maybe DD, despite that the enterprise would have known it had been in a fight, which again tells me that bang for the buck the defiant is a hell of a lot more warship.

to be honest though, defiant prototype as of the time it foundered was equipped with cloak, if the defiant got the first shot in ambush it would probably swap the probability.

edit:
my analysis of the fight depends highly on defiant having mobility advantage and therefor better at taking advantage of openings, but while sovereign is a more powerful ship defiant is a tough nut to crack.

[fredgiblet]

but the enterprise "died" 4 time (A-B-C-D)

The original was destroyed
A was decommisioned, not destroyed (at least not on camera)
B wasn't destroyed, it was just damaged
C was Alternate Universe and so doesn't count
D was destroyed because the E would look better on a film screen and they were planning on making more movies

The only one with a legit death is the original.

[javcs]

but the enterprise "died" 4 time (A-B-C-D)

The original was destroyed
A was decommisioned, not destroyed (at least not on camera)
B wasn't destroyed, it was just damaged
C was Alternate Universe and so doesn't count
D was destroyed because the E would look better on a film screen and they were planning on making more movies

The only one with a legit death is the original.

Ent-C's end was not alt universe. It's 'proper' end was where it fought to the death at a Klingon outpost (don't remember the name) in 2344, defending it against Romulans.

I don't believe we know how Ent-B ended its run.

Ent-A ... don't remember its official end, either.

Ent-B was never destroyed onscreen, but it had to have been destroyed or decommissioned for whatever reason sometime in the early half of the 24th century.

Ent-D arguably should have been able to take way more damage in Generations than it did, but it was also definitely destroyed, and somewhat ignominiously so, given that it was laid low by a bird of prey.


@Discord: Defiant isn't 120m long. There are ... sizing issues with the Defiant, as there are with the Klingon Bird of Prey and with DS9 itself.
As for an Ent-E (or any other Sovereign class vessel) versus Defiant, Defiant's only chance would be if it jumped Ent-E by surprise, under cloak, while Ent-E's shields were down, or otherwise had favorable circumstances, and even then, unless Defiant was able to inflict significant damage to Ent-E's capabilities, Ent-E would still win. The Sovereign class, after all, has heavier armor and shielding than the Defiant class, more powerful weapons (and more of them), in a larger hull.
The Defiant would not have a significant maneuverability advantage over Ent-E, or at least, not one large enough to make a difference in an engagement.

The Sao Paulo was also fitted with a cloaking device and adjusted to be closer to the prototype's specs when it was renamed (and renumbered to match the original) to replace the prototype Defiant.

The sole purpose of a Defiant is combat - and initially designed to fight the Borg, then tweaked to fight the Dominion. It's a pure combat vessel.
The Ent-E, and the other Sovereign class vessels, while they are capital ships, have a significant portion of their volume designated for functions that are absolutely meaningless in a pure combat scenario.
Of course the Defiant class is going to be more efficient (relatively speaking) on an equal mass, volume, or cost basis as a warship than a Sovereign class is. A Defiant has a greater proportion of its volume dedicated to combat systems than a Sovereign class does, but a Sovereign also has a far greater amount of volume to allocate out.

However, Ent-E, or any other Sovereign class vessel, could pound any two Defiant class vessels into dust, and still be combat capable at the end of it.


The Defiant class is significantly "denser" than any other known Starfleet ship (and denser than most everyone else's ships too, IIRC).

There's no real comparison for what Ent-E (or any other Sovereign class) is relative to the Defiant class. The Defiant class is pure warship. Ent-E (and other Sovereign class) is warship plus science plus diplomacy plus medical plus etc. We don't have anything like that in our experience to make an accurate comparison or analogy.

[TrashMan]

Also century old ships that still work - the cligons would love wh40k imperium then.

Yeah, but I don't think the Imperium would be impressed with them...


***

That said...Galaxy-X pwns everything. Defiant? Sovereing? HAH!

[discord]

CENTURY old? try thousands of years old, please note plural.

javcs: sizing issues aside, sovereign-class is a command and control flagship, with many other functions, defiant is for all intents and purposes an over sized torpedo boat, or for that matter perhaps more closely resembles a pocket battleship, but that still does not add up exactly....i'll even give you that two defiants vs a single sovereign would probably be closer to equal....but that is still only something like 1/10th of the crew and somewhere close to that in production cost.

and my argument is that defiant is the first dedicated warship, not that it is the most powerful vessel in starfleet.

edit:
NCC-1701, self destructed in "ST 3: the search for spock" after forty years of service.
NCC-1701-A decommisioned after only 7 years of service.
NCC-1701-B 2329 – Lost (presumed destroyed) after the crew reports contracting an unknown infection. 36 years of service.
NCC-1701-C blown up fighting klingons in 2344
NCC-1701-D was destroyed during the Battle of Veridian III in 2371(8 years of service)
NCC-1701-E not dead yet.

[Codius_Dak]

Don't be ridiculous, the Federation doesn't have warships, just engineers . Also, making Star Trek aliens fight those strikes me as mean (consider: 'carpet bombing' an enemy starship with photon torpedoes).

Edit: Though, thinking about it, the Klingons might be impressed: "Your great-great-great-great-grandfather flew this into battle and it still works?" Tourism would be inevitable.

Akira Class Battlecruiser/Carrier anyone?

http://akiraclass.wetpaint.com/

[NOMAD]

[quote="Codius_Dak

Akira Class Battlecruiser/Carrier anyone?

http://akiraclass.wetpaint.com/[/quote]

true, but the Borg incursion brought forth more military (-like) designs. The Akira class is small for a warship ( in ST terms) but a note from history is a good note: in the US they built around 800-1200 destroyer escorts ( lighter destroyers that were easily to build) in comparison to 400-600 full destroyers because the need was their. Beside Federation ships are more multi-purpose ( at stated multiple time in this post). Star Fleet has combat ships but their not a priority (until war occurs).

besides I like the NX-01 inspired shape to the ship ( or is it the other way around NX-01 was inspire by Akira)

edit:

akira: well named and good character reference ( unless thier another meaning to Akira as a japanese name ?)

[javcs]

CENTURY old? try thousands of years old, please note plural.

javcs: sizing issues aside, sovereign-class is a command and control flagship, with many other functions, defiant is for all intents and purposes an over sized torpedo boat, or for that matter perhaps more closely resembles a pocket battleship, but that still does not add up exactly....i'll even give you that two defiants vs a single sovereign would probably be closer to equal....but that is still only something like 1/10th of the crew and somewhere close to that in production cost.

and my argument is that defiant is the first dedicated warship, not that it is the most powerful vessel in starfleet.

edit:
NCC-1701, self destructed in "ST 3: the search for spock" after forty years of service.
NCC-1701-A decommisioned after only 7 years of service.
NCC-1701-B 2329 – Lost (presumed destroyed) after the crew reports contracting an unknown infection. 36 years of service.
NCC-1701-C blown up fighting klingons in 2344
NCC-1701-D was destroyed during the Battle of Veridian III in 2371(8 years of service)
NCC-1701-E not dead yet.

1701-A was renamed and renumbered as being the Enterprise. Before that, it had been named the USS Yorktown - don't remember the number.


Anyways, Defiant was the first dedicated warship that we saw, yes. However, it cannot have been the first dedicated warship in Starfleet's history - SF has been in several wars in the past, especially in its earlier days, IE, the first Romulan War era, and the early, early days of the UFP and the pre-UFP Earth Starfleet, I believe had some 'dedicated' warships, relatively speaking, on account of their limited technological capabilities and resources, preventing the effective 'generalist' designs that we saw from being viable as the near-exclusive defensive and offensive force. In fact, I believe some of the ESF ships we saw in the later seasons of Enterprise were more or less dedicated warship designs.



The Akira-class isn't that small in ST terms. Admittedly, not the size of a Galaxy or Sovereign, but bigger than an Intrepid.
The US build all those damn destroyer escorts in WW2 because of politics, and then had to get rid of nearly all of the ones that were left after the war because they couldn't do what the Navy needed them to do.

[TrashMan]