Hypothetical Starfleet ship roles

[Reliant121]

No because the universe is a place with shit loads of energy. Borg for example, Dominion for example....Maybe even the Voth one day. Tough shit, Sovereign isnt gonna last as long as OR dish out as much hurt as something like a Paladin. I personally dont like battleships. I hate huge, ponderous leviathans. BUT, pragmatics and practical requirements are more important.

And Seafort knows this because thats how vessel classification has always been measured. Star Trek Conforms to what we can equate to World War II warshp sizes and classifications. By that measure, the sovereign is more in line with a battlecruiser.

[m52nickerson]

The most heavily armed, but not the biggest - that's the GCS, and if they built a Sov-quality ship the size of the GCS it would be more powerful.

I ment biggest as far as warships, sorry.

A GCS built to Sov quality may not end up being more powerful.

It's not speed an manoeuvrability that ultimately define battlecruisers, but armour (or the lack thereof), and the Sov's armour is clearly inferior to what the Feds are capable of (i.e. the Defiant's).

....and you know this how. Not only that but since Starships also rely on shields for protection they also should be taken into account.

[Reliant121]

plus when it comes to armour, the Defiant has 20 cm of ablative armour that is twice as much as a sovereign. If we go by mass ratio, the Sovereign should have almost 10 times as much armour, as the Sovereign is almost 10 times more massive than the Defiant.

True, Shields should be taken into account. That said, they are faultered by many a thing, and in huge fleet actions, often armour is an integral part of the ships survival.

[Deepcrush]

I would call compromise here. What say we call the Sovereign a Fast Battleship (which btw, was hardly any different to a Battlecruiser at the end of world war I). That still begs, that a better battleship should be included to work in conjunction.

Why? Just because you feel that the Federation needs some lumbering giant?

No, because it needs a ship to deal with the battleships of its enemies.

Not necessarily.

Umm...... Yes it would be more powerful. Thats what happens when you build a bigger warship. Guns get BIGGER, armor gets BIGGER, shields grow BIGGER...

....and you know this how.

Because Trek tells us so.

Not only that but since Starships also rely on shields for protection they also should be taken into account.

Has anyone here tried to remove shields? Sheilds are a form of protection, just like armor.

[Captain Seafort]

Not necessarily.

Yes, necessarily, because the Sov is stronger than a GCS (a QT launcher and 4 PTs vs 2 PTs) and the GCS is bigger. Therefore if a ship as strong (mass-power ratio) as the Sov is put into a larger hull then it will be stronger.

and you know this how.

The mobility vs protection bit? Because battlecruisers deliberately sacrificed armour for their mobility. Fast battleships only gained their speed once protection was assured.

The Sov vs Defiant armour? Because the Sov's got windows and the Defiant hasn't.

Not only that but since Starships also rely on shields for protection they also should be taken into account.

They also rely on strong armour that can hold off considerable firepower (see the Defiant in The Search, Way of the Warrior and The Changing Face of Evil). Shields + armour are stronger than shields alone.

[m52nickerson]

No, because it needs a ship to deal with the battleships of its enemies.

Please tell me what other Battleships it could not take on.

Umm...... Yes it would be more powerful. Thats what happens when you build a bigger warship. Guns get BIGGER, armor gets BIGGER, shields grow BIGGER...

Remember that whole discussion about bigger is not better which ended with me asking for evidance, and no one providing it. Again there is no evidance that making more powerful phasers or shields is simply a matter of making them bigger.

Because Trek tells us so.

Really, were?

Has anyone here tried to remove shields? Sheilds are a form of protection, just like armor.

Yes that is what I said?

[Reliant121]

No, because it needs a ship to deal with the battleships of its enemies.

Please tell me what other Battleships it could not take on.

Umm...... Yes it would be more powerful. Thats what happens when you build a bigger warship. Guns get BIGGER, armor gets BIGGER, shields grow BIGGER...

Remember that whole discussion about bigger is not better which ended with me asking for evidance, and no one providing it. Again there is no evidance that making more powerful phasers or shields is simply a matter of making them bigger.

Because Trek tells us so.

Really, were?

Has anyone here tried to remove shields? Sheilds are a form of protection, just like armor.

Yes that is what I said?

For the phasers being more powerful dependent on size, why are the most powerful phasers and shields only on the biggest ships, with the biggest mass and biggest reactors to power them? does it not stand to reason that they are bigger to get a better output, but require the larger mass and power source to power them, hence they are fitted to the larger ship?

[m52nickerson]

Yes, necessarily, because the Sov is stronger than a GCS (a QT launcher and 4 PTs vs 2 PTs) and the GCS is bigger. Therefore if a ship as strong (mass-power ratio) as the Sov is put into a larger hull then it will be stronger.

This is assuming that you can just simple scale up and maintain that ratio.

The mobility vs protection bit? Because battlecruisers deliberately sacrificed armour for their mobility. Fast battleships only gained their speed once protection was assured.

Were has it ever been said that the Sov sacificed armor for speed? Even if it did the shield make up for that.

The Sov vs Defiant armour? Because the Sov's got windows and the Defiant hasn't.

You can't have armor ont he hull between the windows?

They also rely on strong armour that can hold off considerable firepower (see the Defiant in The Search, Way of the Warrior and The Changing Face of Evil). Shields + armour are stronger than shields alone.

So are you suggesting that the Defiant can take more damage then a Sov, or that the Sov is not armored at all?

[m52nickerson]

For the phasers being more powerful dependent on size, why are the most powerful phasers and shields only on the biggest ships, with the biggest mass and biggest reactors to power them? does it not stand to reason that they are bigger to get a better output, but require the larger mass and power source to power them, hence they are fitted to the larger ship?

Yes, but that does not mean there is not an upper limit to shield and phaser size and power.

[Reliant121]

For the phasers being more powerful dependent on size, why are the most powerful phasers and shields only on the biggest ships, with the biggest mass and biggest reactors to power them? does it not stand to reason that they are bigger to get a better output, but require the larger mass and power source to power them, hence they are fitted to the larger ship?

Yes, but that does not mean there is not an upper limit to shield and phaser size and power.

Prove there is? How can you say that there is a limit to how high a phaser can charge, or how high a shield can charge?

[Captain Seafort]

This is assuming that you can just simple scale up and maintain that ratio.

More space = more room for fuel, torpedoes, reactors, etc. Design it well, rather than the somewhat slender Sov, and you could fit in two or three cores the size of the Sov's.

You can't have armor ont he hull between the windows?

Of course you can, but armour (and hull) with bloody great holes in it will inevitably be weaker than homogeneous plating.

So are you suggesting that the Defiant can take more damage then a Sov, or that the Sov is not armored at all?

The Defiant's hull is proven to be stronger than the Sov's, since it took repeated hits in the episodes I mentioned while the Sov suffered hull breaches to single hits. The Sov can probably take more damage due to it's size, but individual hits do a lot more damage.

[Praeothmin]

Evidence? We've never seen two Sovs go up against each other.

But we have seen a Sovie go against a very powerful ship, the Scimitar, and if it hadn't been cloaked, the E-E would have fared far better against it.

The sacrifice of heavy armour in favour of mobility is a defining characteristic of the battlecruiser type.

Yes, but that's the contention point:
Does the Sovie really have less or equal armor to, say, a GCS?
We've seen the Sovie take beatings comparable to those the Defiant took, and it performed really well, so again, where is it stated that the Defiant has more armor then the Sovie, a ship inspired by the Defiant and built after it?

On the contrary, the fact that we never see the Sov in a fleet action suggests that they may not have the endurance of other ships (such as the war-GCS).

Or that Starfleet felt that they would be better served in other duties, such as when they did't want the E-E to go against the Borg because of Picard.
It had nothing to do with the ship itself.

Not a chance. The Paladin is bigger and more heavily armoured, with a power-mass ratio at least equal to that of the Sov.

I know, which is why I said "almost as well".
I hardly think any ship being flanked by two Sovies would do badly in any combat situation...

It would certainly have been impressive, but they weren't there, suggesting that they may be powerful and well-protected, but lacking the endurance to sustain a fleet action.

Or, as stated previously, that Starfleet felt they were going to be more efficient in other roles.
I can easily seen Starfleet using them as deterrent in areas where, due to lack of available ships, one Sovie could be a decisive asset.

They can certainly build a ship that big (the GCS) and can produce ships with a high power-mass ratio (the Sov, Prommie and Defiant).

I adressed that.
We have no clear indication that the Sovie is equal to a Defiant in power-mass ratio.
We have no clear indication that Starfleet is able to build a ship equal to the Defiant in power-mass ratio the size of a Sovie.
In fact, as stated, when at first the Defiant came out, even a ship its size had many design issues.
Yes, they were solved over-time, but they were there at the beginning.

They simply don't want to. It took the Borg threat to make them start building proper warships like the Defiant.

Which then led to the Sovie.
Perhaps the Sovie is their vision of a Battleship...

Even if they can't build big enough weapons to make maximum use of the power available (although the fact that the conduits to the GCS deflector could handle it) they could compensate by increasing the numbers of smaller weapons.

Didn't they burn out after one use?
Wasn't the fact that the power used through the Deflector couldn't be used in the Phaser arrays indicative of the limits of the weapons power distribution network?
By increasing the number of smaller weapons, you may obtain an equal power in weapon's output, but in the cases where big guns are needed, you lack the ability to punch hard, no?

[Deepcrush]

Please tell me what other Battleships it could not take on.

Lets think... who else has a battleship... maybe the Dominion, the RSE, the Borg, the Voth, the Klingons, the Tamarians.

Were has it ever been said that the Sov sacificed armor for speed? Even if it did the shield make up for that.

The Sov is fast, meaning that there was the ability to put more weight, ie more armor, onto the hull.

You can't have armor ont he hull between the windows?

Nothing to do with that. It has to do with windows being soft points on the hull.
"Our metal armor covers everything.... minus those big glass viewing ports...

So are you suggesting that the Defiant can take more damage then a Sov, or that the Sov is not armored at all?

He's saying that Armor+Shields is better then No Armor+Shields.

Yes, but that does not mean there is not an upper limit to shield and phaser size and power.

The upper limit is how much power you can generate.

[Praeothmin]

The Defiant's hull is proven to be stronger than the Sov's, since it took repeated hits in the episodes I mentioned while the Sov suffered hull breaches to single hits.

What we need to know in this case is, how powerful were the shots that hit the Defiant, when compared to those that hit the Sovereign?
How do we know that the weapons that caused hull breaches in the Sovie were not twice as powerful as the weapons that didn't breach the defiant?

[Deepcrush]

The Defiant's hull is proven to be stronger than the Sov's, since it took repeated hits in the episodes I mentioned while the Sov suffered hull breaches to single hits.

What we need to know in this case is, how powerful were the shots that hit the Defiant, when compared to those that hit the Sovereign?
How do we know that the weapons that caused hull breaches in the Sovie were not twice as powerful as the weapons that didn't breach the defiant?

How do you know the reverse isn't true?