Cardassian Ship Technology

[Deepcrush]

There's nothing wrong with the Galor or Keldon. Their good for taking on BoP and BCs. But against the AC, they just don't hold up. A ship to take on the Vorcha is most likely the number one problem the CU when fighting the KE.

[Deepcrush]

This all presupposes that the Cardies are capable of building ships that big. The overriding trend in Trek has been one of bigger = better, and yet even with a very strong design the Galors were pretty small ships by Alpha Quadrant standards. If their materials science were capable of building bigger ships, even in relatively small numbers, you'd have thought they'd have done so.

It would seem too me that they just didn't feel the need to build them. Smaller cheaper ships in greater numbers have served them well and the last war they were in (CU vs UFP). Seeing how the Galor is the equal of the Excelsior which at the time was the main stay of the UFP. Same thing goes with the KE, seeing how back during the last large build up in the CU, the KE didn't have the Vorcha to contend with.

[Mikey]

I tend to think it was a constraint on resources which led to the Galor-Keldon design philosophy. With a max limit of "x" resources, one could build (for example) three Galors or one ship of 3x Galor size and capability, and the Cardies opted for the flexibility that the former option presented.

[Captain Seafort]

I'm not suggesting that they build a massive fleet of battleships, simply that they should have at least a small force of the largest and most powerful battleships they're capable of building on hand in case of trouble. The Galors are fine for general patrol duties, and to bulk out a fleet in the same way the Excelsiors do for Starfleet, but they don't cut it against the heavy hitters of the great powers. The fact that when we saw the Cardie idea of a battleship (the Keldon) it was little more than a heavilly refitted Galor, and that we've never seen a heavier ship, speaks volumes.

[Sionnach Glic]

I was asking about how useful these would be...

Silly Rochey.

Ah, sorry. The way you replied it looked as though you thought I had made a statement as to the effectiveness of the battleships.

Seafort:
I agree with you on that. Building a battleship isn't simply a matter of scaling up existing designs. While they may have the resources to build them, they may not have the expertise or technological know-how to do so.

[Deepcrush]

I'd also figure that the CU was a little on the relaxed side with their main enemy being the UFP. They also made the same mistake the UFP made. Having only 2 classes of ships as they mainstay. Then, when the other powers decided that they needed bigger and better the CU just didn't have the means to keep up. So they just went with the idea of building even more of what they had on hand.

[Mikey]

I always imagined that the fact that their "battleship" was merely a done-up Galor reflected an inability to build a true battleship - either through technical inability (which I doubt, because they built things like the Dreadnought missile) or through the lack of resources available to field them in useful numbers.

[Sionnach Glic]

Good point on the Dreadnought missile. That was fairly large. Though given that it's effectively a flying bomb with guns, it's probably a lot less sophisticated than a real ship.

[Mikey]

I meant the tech in it is rather sophisticated for what it is. Completely autonomous AI, QT's (apparently,) etc.

[Deepcrush]

Mikey, you have to remember, it was Voy!

[Mikey]

Oh, right. *disables brain*

Now I get it.

[KuvahMagh]

That's the problem with the Cardassians, they have these fantastivc ideas such as Dreadnought and the ODPs but in practice they over complicated or resource intensive.

[Deepcrush]

First off, I truly doubt that the Dreadnought was CU tech. Like Graham and I had talked about before that the tech was most likely stolen. That would explain why they couldn't reproduce them in fair numbers. Also, the ODPs worked pretty well. What they lacked was a power source strong enough to meet their needs. This is just a design flaw that could be worked out in a few months to a year. By then a whole new line of the ODPs would ready to roll.

[Teaos]

Wl even if the tech was "stolen" its theirs now and they can use it as they like.

[Deepcrush]

It would seem in fact, that they cannot use it as they like. Otherwise we would have seen much more of it.