Hypothetical Starfleet ship roles

[Praeothmin]

Not the statement made, which was "The Sovie has the capacity to resist its own guns".

You're right, but since we have never seen a Sovie vs Sovie fight, I thought I'd mention the fight the Sovie had against the "Super Reman Ship", which had weapons powerful enough to seriously damage the Romulan ships in very few shots.
It's easy enough to figure that the Reman ship had weapons as powerful as the E-E.

Unknown and irrelevant - it has less than the Defiant.

Still not proven, unless you're aware of a canon statement saying so...
Although, I believe we may not be thinking of the same thing when you and I mention the "amount" of armor.
I'm thinking thickness or armor on the hull, notwithstanding the windows.
If you're thinking proportionate area of hull surface covered, then I'd have to agree with you, the Defiant, by its absence of windows, would have "more".
Is that what you meant?

It had holes punched in it from single shots.

The power of which we know nothing...
Inconclusive.

All of them? We know there's more than one of them (hence the class name) and Starfleet should have been able to produce several of them by the time the Dominion war came along, and yet we never saw a single Sov in any of the fleet actions.

Several, but how many?
How do we know they had more then 3?
How do we know that, in a time of War, they didn't prefer to use ressources in smaller ships that could be manufactured in greater numbers, thus boosting the overall capacity of Starfleet to respond on many fronts?

The question wasn't "would it do badly" - the question was "would it do as well".

To which my original answer was "almost as well".
I simply added the comment about how any ship flanked by two Sovies would do pretty well in any case.
I never said any ship would do "as well" as the Paladin, in fact I didn't even say a Sovie would do "as well"...

At the possible expensive of losing critical battles due to holding their most powerful ship back. Not even Starfleet is that stupid - they repeatedly sent the E-D into trouble because it was their most powerful ship.

Most of these times the E-D was sent there alone, because Starfleet could or would only send one ship.
In the cases where the E-D wasn't alone, it was always in small fleet actions, where it coordinated at most with 30 or 40 ships.
In battles where there are 500 to 600 ships present, one or three Sovereigns won't change the outcome much.
Look at the Dominion Super-Ships.
They were there at the battles, yet they didn't change the course of those battles much, now did they?
I said I would have loved to see the Sovies in Ds9 battles, but that was only a fan wish, just to see the kind of damage they could inflict, but I have no doubt that even with the Sovies there, all of these battles would have ended the exact same way, only with more losses on the Dominion side.
One super ship does not change the tide of battle, unless it is a Borg of Voth ship.

No, but we do have strong circumstantial evidence that the Defiant is, if anything, stronger.

What evidence? (honestly curious)

We know they have the technology for that sort of ratio, and we know they have the industrial capability to build a ship that size. Certainly the design would be a challenge, but it's simply a matter of mating different demonstrated technologies.
Yes, there will be design issues, and yes the early ships may also have issues. The Defiant was developed into a reliable and powerful design, and in doing so Starfleet undoubtedly gained a great deal of experience in operating warships.

Exactly.
They have the technology to build that power-mass ratio on a small scale: the Defiant.
They have the have the capability to build big ships, but we have no proof they can merge the two.
In fact, the most powerful ship they have at the moment is the Sovereign-class.
They have no other.
This is the ship they built.
This is, to use your own words, strong circumstantial evidence that it is currently the most powerful ship they are capable of building at these sizes.

I agree with you that they may have the capacity to scale up the Defiant's power-mass ratio to the size of a Sovie.
What I'm saying is that, at the moment, they can't do it successfully, just as they had issues with the Defiant in the beginning.

Then they need their eyesight checking - the design could do with some serious improvements.

Every ship needs improvements, even modern warships, none are perfect, even our current Battleships, even when they were first designed and built, they weren't perfect, but they still filled the Battleship role.

Relative to fewer bigger guns, yes, but the fact that bigger guns are better doesn't detract from the superiority of a ship with more guns

Well, all the stats I see say that the Sovie does in fact have more guns then the GCS, so it is in fact superior to the GCS.
Even if we were to replace all the guns on a GCS with Type-XII Phasers, the Sovie would still outgun it because it has more Phaser strips, and more torpedo launchers.

Nonetheless, the fact that the Defiant's hull withstood multiple hits from Jem'Hadar weapons in "The Search" speaks volumes about the strength of it's armour. While we are unable to directly compare those weapons with those of the Scimitar, it stands to reason that they are, proportionally, roughly equal to those of the Scimitar (if not stronger given the Dominion's technological superiority over the AQ powers). Therefore, we would expect the Sov to fare as well or better against the Scimitar (given that the larger a ship is, the thicker the armour it can carry as a given proportion of it's mass), not worse as was the case.

We don't know the strenght of the Jem'Hadar Bugs' weapons compared to the Scimitar.
The Scimitar was more advanced and powerful then anything the Rommies could field at the time.
The only "technical superiority" the Jem'Hadar enjoyed is the ability to bypass Federation shields.
That doesn't tell us anything on the strenght of their weapons.
Once this flaw was found and corrected, the weapons of the Jem'Hadar did no more damage then Klingon or Cardassian weapons.
If anything, it showed us that their weapons were indeed weaker then the Scimitar's.


Our main disagreements come from the fact that you believe that the Defiant has more armor then the Sovie, and I don't (meaning armor thickness).
You believe the Sovie cannot take hits from weapons as powerful as its own, and I do.
In both cases, we can neither prove nor disprove the other's stance.
I think the best we can hope for is to agree to disagree...

[Captain Seafort]

It's easy enough to figure that the Reman ship had weapons as powerful as the E-E.

Prove it. The claim was made that the E-E was a battleship based on the fact that it could resist its own firepower, a claim for which there is no evidence whatsoever.

Although, I believe we may not be thinking of the same thing when you and I mention the "amount" of armor.
I'm thinking thickness or armor on the hull, notwithstanding the windows.
If you're thinking proportionate area of hull surface covered, then I'd have to agree with you, the Defiant, by its absence of windows, would have "more".

There's no point in thick armour with the number of holes in it the Sov's would have - it's like using a colander as a bucket.

Several, but how many?
How do we know they had more then 3?
How do we know that, in a time of War, they didn't prefer to use ressources in smaller ships that could be manufactured in greater numbers, thus boosting the overall capacity of Starfleet to respond on many fronts?

The numbers of ships are irrelevant - the point is that we know of the existence of at least two, and yet we never see them in action in the Dominion War. Not in the action to retake DS9, not in the first advance on Chin'toka, not in the defence of Chin'toka, and not in the final advance on Cardassia. The first and third of those may be excused as Starfleet being pressed for time and going with whatever ships were available, but the other two were meticulously planned offensives. Either Starfleet is even more stupid than we've been lead to believe, by failing to include their strongest ships in the fleets, or the Sov has a weakness or weaknesses that make it unsuitable for the task. The most likely is that it's too poorly protected for the amount of attention a ship with that sort of firepower is likely to attract to be an effective contributor to a fleet action.

To which my original answer was "almost as well".

In other words: no.

In battles where there are 500 to 600 ships present, one or three Sovereigns won't change the outcome much.
Look at the Dominion Super-Ships.
They were there at the battles, yet they didn't change the course of those battles much, now did they?

One extra battleship is not likely to significantly change the outcome of a battle, but that is no reason to exclude them. One of the fundamental principles of warfare is that the maximum possible force must be concentrated at the decisive point. If the Sovs were as strong as they appear to be, and lack significant drawbacks that counter the advantage of that firepower, then their addition is a significant net gain to a fleet, and the principle of concentration of force dictates that they should be present. The fact that they are not indicates that Starfleet is collectively even more stupid than is otherwise indicated, or that the Sovs aren't suited to fleet actions.

What evidence? (honestly curious)

The fact that the Defiant either equals or outguns the GCS, examples of which were employed as battleships during the war while the Sov was not. This indicates that the GCS (or at least the war-standard model) is superior in some ways to the Sov. I would be very surprised if the Defiant herself outgunned the Sov, given the latter's profusion of PTs, but I would likewise be surprised if the latter had a higher power-to-mass ratio than the former.

They have the technology to build that power-mass ratio on a small scale: the Defiant.
They have the have the capability to build big ships, but we have no proof they can merge the two.
In fact, the most powerful ship they have at the moment is the Sovereign-class.

Power-mass ratio, given Starfleet's technology and the waste of space shown on their large ships, should not be difficult to achieve. Even if it weren't as high as the Defiant's, replacing a quantity of the extra space with power generatorsor reinforcing bulkheads would produce a ship of considerably greater power than currently.

Every ship needs improvements, even modern warships, none are perfect, even our current Battleships, even when they were first designed and built, they weren't perfect, but they still filled the Battleship role.

Apart from the obvious fact that no battleships are in service with any navy (with the possibly exception of the Kirovs depending on your definition), the Sov's horrendous lack of armour is far worse than any teething troubles any historical class has suffered. Even the RN's battlecruisers had an armoured belt, albeit it was frequently a thin and shallow one. No capital ship has ever been built so ill-protected as the Sov.

Well, all the stats I see say that the Sovie does in fact have more guns then the GCS, so it is in fact superior to the GCS.
Even if we were to replace all the guns on a GCS with Type-XII Phasers, the Sovie would still outgun it because it has more Phaser strips, and more torpedo launchers.

I'm not talking about the GCS - I'm talking about the simple fact that more guns are better, a ship with more power available can power more phasers of a given strength, and the bigger a ship is, the greater it's potential for producing power.

The Scimitar was more advanced and powerful then anything the Rommies could field at the time.

Impossible by definition, given that it constructed using the Romulan industrial base.

The only "technical superiority" the Jem'Hadar enjoyed is the ability to bypass Federation shields.
That doesn't tell us anything on the strenght of their weapons.

And their long-range transporters, and their personalised cloaking devices, and their greater shipbuilding abilities (given the fact that the battleship was far larger than the Feds' largest ship). You cannot divorce technological developments in one department from their overall capabilities - if they advanced in some respects then their industrial base must be capable of supporting that overall, and therefore it is likely (albeit not certain) that their weapons are more powerful than those of the Romulans.

Once this flaw was found and corrected, the weapons of the Jem'Hadar did no more damage then Klingon or Cardassian weapons.

Their flagship during the assault on DS9 did no more damage than the Negh'var did, but that still meant it brought down the shields. Moreover, the Negh'var did so with its heaviest guns - the two monsters on the underside of the ship, whereas the JH ship's weapons appeared to be its common emplacements, requiring no such heavy mountings.

[Praeothmin]

The claim was made that the E-E was a battleship based on the fact that it could resist its own firepower, a claim for which there is no evidence whatsoever.

You're right.
I'm trying to find an incident that could validate my point, but you are correct, there doesn't seem to be any (in canon).
So I conceed that claim.

There's no point in thick armour with the number of holes in it the Sov's would have - it's like using a colander as a bucket.

I don't agree.
There aren't that many windows, those that exist are small and not likely targetable (see linked image)
http://www.geoffreylatham.com/repute/titanbig.jpg
Having armor everywhere around those windows would improve the ship's resilience, as well as having windows twice as thick as the standard ones on other ships.
We don't know if those windows are standard, or even more reinforced material then on other ships.

The numbers of ships are irrelevant - the point is that we know of the existence of at least two, and yet we never see them in action in the Dominion War. Not in the action to retake DS9, not in the first advance on Chin'toka, not in the defence of Chin'toka, and not in the final advance on Cardassia. The first and third of those may be excused as Starfleet being pressed for time and going with whatever ships were available, but the other two were meticulously planned offensives. Either Starfleet is even more stupid than we've been lead to believe, by failing to include their strongest ships in the fleets, or the Sov has a weakness or weaknesses that make it unsuitable for the task.

Then chalk it up to stupidity then, because we have a know crew, tried and tested in battle, who we've never seen in any of those "important" battles either: Picard's crew.
We've seen them time and again in battle, yet they have apparently participated in no DW battle.
Why?
Since they have the most advanced ship in the fleet, having one of the most experienced crew around would definitely have helped them work around the "weakness" of the ship, if there truly was such a weakness.
Which means that either Starfleet was stupid, or that, again, the Sovereigns were found to be more efficient in actions where there were less ships available and where its power would serve best.

In other words: no.

Like I said, I don't deny the superiority of the Paladin over the Sovereign, just the absolute need for it, and the "size" of the difference the Paladin would make flanked with two Sovereigns when compared to another Sovie flanked with two Sovies.

One extra battleship is not likely to significantly change the outcome of a battle, but that is no reason to exclude them. One of the fundamental principles of warfare is that the maximum possible force must be concentrated at the decisive point. If the Sovs were as strong as they appear to be, and lack significant drawbacks that counter the advantage of that firepower, then their addition is a significant net gain to a fleet, and the principle of concentration of force dictates that they should be present. The fact that they are not indicates that Starfleet is collectively even more stupid than is otherwise indicated, or that the Sovs aren't suited to fleet actions.

It is no excuse to exclude them, unless there is a strategic reason, such as them being more efficient on other frontlines, where there are less available ships and where their superior power will make more of a difference.

The fact that the Defiant either equals or outguns the GCS, examples of which were employed as battleships during the war while the Sov was not. This indicates that the GCS (or at least the war-standard model) is superior in some ways to the Sov.

Ok, this point crosses over to the reasons "why" the Sovies weren't there.
If you have no Sovies available, the logical choice for a Battleship will of course be a refit GCS, that's a given.
But that's not evidence of the Defiant being stronger then a Sovie.

Even if it weren't as high as the Defiant's, replacing a quantity of the extra space with power generatorsor reinforcing bulkheads would produce a ship of considerably greater power than currently.

We're running circles here.
Again, we have no evidence, whatsoever, that at the Sovereign's size, it's easy to just add a shitload more guns and more power sources without a complete overhaul of the ship.
They did indeed add a few Phaser strips after FC and Insurrection, showing that they knew the ship needed to be more powerful, but the limit of the add-ons seem to indicate that they added what they could, and were already at the limits of the Sovie's capacity.
We're basically going back to the Nebula upgrade issue.
It can probably be done, but not easily, and perhaps not now, not without a profound redesign of the vessel.

the Sov's horrendous lack of armour is far worse than any teething troubles any historical class has suffered.

Again, no evidence that it does, indeed, lack armor as you say...

No capital ship has ever been built so ill-protected as the Sov.

Really?
How about the GCS?
It had a hell of a lot more windows then the Sov, and the systems seemed very fragile indeed.

I'm not talking about the GCS - I'm talking about the simple fact that more guns are better, a ship with more power available can power more phasers of a given strength, and the bigger a ship is, the greater it's potential for producing power.

Well, the GCS needs to be brought in this conversation, because here is a ship that is bigger then the Sovie, but that seems to output less power and possesses less powerful weapons.
Yes, it has older tech, but again, this comes down too how easy it is to upscale Defiant-type weaponry and integrate it in a ship the size of the Sov.

Impossible by definition, given that it constructed using the Romulan industrial base.

Yet the Scimitar was capable of firing while cloaked when Donatra's new ships weren't, and it had more powerful shields then Donatra's birds who where incapacitated with very little shots.

And their long-range transporters, and their personalised cloaking devices, and their greater shipbuilding abilities (given the fact that the battleship was far larger than the Feds' largest ship). You cannot divorce technological developments in one department from their overall capabilities - if they advanced in some respects then their industrial base must be capable of supporting that overall, and therefore it is likely (albeit not certain) that their weapons are more powerful than those of the Romulans.

Long-Range Transporters, yes.
Personnal cloaking devices?
First, the Federation has signed a treaty stopping them from researching and develloping cloaking devices.
Second, they had the "Stealth-suits" allowing them to walk undetected when they wanted to study Pre-Warp cultures.
If they can build suits that bend light (essentially "cloaking" the wearer), then if they were allowed to research cloaking technology, I'm sure they would be able to field personnal cloaks.
We know the Federation don't have cloaks because of treaties, not because they can't build them.

As for their Battleships, we don't know how much more advanced they were compared to the basic Dominion ship, therefore we don't know if those ships weren't simply a bigger Battlecruiser, with more of the "standard" armaments of the other Dominion ships.
Basically, it could be their version of a bigger GCS with many Type-X Phasers, but no Type-XII.
Instead of having 12 strips, it could have had 24 strips.

Their flagship during the assault on DS9 did no more damage than the Negh'var did, but that still meant it brought down the shields. Moreover, the Negh'var did so with its heaviest guns - the two monsters on the underside of the ship, whereas the JH ship's weapons appeared to be its common emplacements, requiring no such heavy mountings.

Didn't it bring the station's shields down after other Dominion ships had fired at the station?


I still don't agree with your assessment that the Defiant has more armor then the Sovie, but I do have to let go of my classification of the Sov as a Battleship and classify it as a Battle cruiser, because we do indeed have no proof that it can resist its own guns...
So I conceed, in a way...

[m52nickerson]

Prove it. The claim was made that the E-E was a battleship based on the fact that it could resist its own firepower, a claim for which there is no evidence whatsoever.

....and Seaford you can't prove that it can't. What we do have is evidance that the Sov can take a massive amount of damage.

There's no point in thick armour with the number of holes in it the Sov's would have - it's like using a colander as a bucket.

No, but you can use as a helmet!

The numbers of ships are irrelevant - the point is that we know of the existence of at least two, and yet we never see them in action in the Dominion War. Not in the action to retake DS9, not in the first advance on Chin'toka, not in the defence of Chin'toka, and not in the final advance on Cardassia. The first and third of those may be excused as Starfleet being pressed for time and going with whatever ships were available, but the other two were meticulously planned offensives. Either Starfleet is even more stupid than we've been lead to believe, by failing to include their strongest ships in the fleets, or the Sov has a weakness or weaknesses that make it unsuitable for the task. The most likely is that it's too poorly protected for the amount of attention a ship with that sort of firepower is likely to attract to be an effective contributor to a fleet action.

....or most likely the class was still in a testing. Remember the E-E had a full year shake down.

One extra battleship is not likely to significantly change the outcome of a battle, but that is no reason to exclude them. One of the fundamental principles of warfare is that the maximum possible force must be concentrated at the decisive point. If the Sovs were as strong as they appear to be, and lack significant drawbacks that counter the advantage of that firepower, then their addition is a significant net gain to a fleet, and the principle of concentration of force dictates that they should be present. The fact that they are not indicates that Starfleet is collectively even more stupid than is otherwise indicated, or that the Sovs aren't suited to fleet actions.

....or again still undergoing testing. As you said they would not have made a huge difference, so why throw a completely untested ship in the mix.

The fact that the Defiant either equals or outguns the GCS, examples of which were employed as battleships during the war while the Sov was not. This indicates that the GCS (or at least the war-standard model) is superior in some ways to the Sov. I would be very surprised if the Defiant herself outgunned the Sov, given the latter's profusion of PTs, but I would likewise be surprised if the latter had a higher power-to-mass ratio than the former.

Most likely still testing and not many in the class, infact probably 2 ships at the time the Sov and the E-E.

Power-mass ratio, given Starfleet's technology and the waste of space shown on their large ships, should not be difficult to achieve. Even if it weren't as high as the Defiant's, replacing a quantity of the extra space with power generatorsor reinforcing bulkheads would produce a ship of considerably greater power than currently.

...and greater power may not mean a thing if the Shields and Weapons can't put it to use. These systems would have a maxium power output based on there design, not based on how much power they could be feed.

Apart from the obvious fact that no battleships are in service with any navy (with the possibly exception of the Kirovs depending on your definition), the Sov's horrendous lack of armour is far worse than any teething troubles any historical class has suffered. Even the RN's battlecruisers had an armoured belt, albeit it was frequently a thin and shallow one. No capital ship has ever been built so ill-protected as the Sov.

Starship armor does not in its self equate to Naval armor. Starships have shields as well. With it's Shields and Armor the Sov is the most protected ship in the fleet.

Impossible by definition, given that it constructed using the Romulan industrial base

How do you figure, it was clear the Scimtar was more advanced then any other Romulan ship we have seen.

And their long-range transporters, and their personalised cloaking devices, and their greater shipbuilding abilities (given the fact that the battleship was far larger than the Feds' largest ship). You cannot divorce technological developments in one department from their overall capabilities - if they advanced in some respects then their industrial base must be capable of supporting that overall, and therefore it is likely (albeit not certain) that their weapons are more powerful than those of the Romulans.

What, what are you smoking? Just because a race have better transporters and personal cloaks does not mean there weapons are going to be more powerful?

Their flagship during the assault on DS9 did no more damage than the Negh'var did, but that still meant it brought down the shields. Moreover, the Negh'var did so with its heaviest guns - the two monsters on the underside of the ship, whereas the JH ship's weapons appeared to be its common emplacements, requiring no such heavy mountings.

....and to take down a GCS a bug fighter had to ram it, while a out dated bird of pray was able to do it with only its weapons.

[Sionnach Glic]

*jumps into thread*

....and Seaford you can't prove that it can't.

Sorry, but you can't ask someone to prove a negative.

[Captain Seafort]

you can't prove that it can't.

You're making the claim, burden of proof is on you.

...or most likely the class was still in a testing. Remember the E-E had a full year shake down.

Which was over by the time the war began.

As you said they would not have made a huge difference

And you ignored the rest of the post.

not many in the class, infact probably 2 ships at the time the Sov and the E-E.

Exactly - you've got two Sovs you can assign to the attacking fleets.

greater power may not mean a thing if the Shields and Weapons can't put it to use. These systems would have a maxium power output based on there design, not based on how much power they could be feed.

Have you read any of my posts? If you can't build weapons big enough to take full advantage of the additional power, then simply use plenty of smaller weapons.

Starship armor does not in its self equate to Naval armor. Starships have shields as well.

Correct. Key phrase: as well. Shields + armour > Shields alone.

How do you figure, it was clear the Scimtar was more advanced then any other Romulan ship we have seen.

Let's see, how do I figure that the fact that the Scimitar was built using the Romulan's industrial base means that it couldn't be "more advanced and powerful then anything the Rommies could field".

What, what are you smoking? Just because a race have better transporters and personal cloaks does not mean there weapons are going to be more powerful?

Those were simply examples. My point, as I stated, was that you can't divorce different aspects of the industrial base.

to take down a GCS a bug fighter had to ram it, while a out dated bird of pray was able to do it with only its weapons.

"Had to"? Prove it.

[Captain Seafort]

I don't agree.
There aren't that many windows, those that exist are small and not likely targetable (see linked image)
http://www.geoffreylatham.com/repute/titanbig.jpg
Having armor everywhere around those windows would improve the ship's resilience, as well as having windows twice as thick as the standard ones on other ships.
We don't know if those windows are standard, or even more reinforced material then on other ships.

Nonetheless, removing the windows entirely would remove a key weak point in the ship's design. Moreover, this image, from DITL, shows that there are substantial rows on windows in the engineering hull - the section that should have the heaviest protection.

Then chalk it up to stupidity then, because we have a know crew, tried and tested in battle, who we've never seen in any of those "important" battles either: Picard's crew.
We've seen them time and again in battle, yet they have apparently participated in no DW battle.
Why?
Since they have the most advanced ship in the fleet, having one of the most experienced crew around would definitely have helped them work around the "weakness" of the ship, if there truly was such a weakness.

Why would you waste a good crew, and a good ship, in actions they weren't suited for? I'm not saying the Sovs are poor ships, far from it - I'm saying that they're poor battleships. As battlecruisers, in the role the type were originally designed for, they'd probably do all right. Separate them from the main fleets and have them conduct raiding missions deep into Dominion territory - they've got strong enough shields to be able to hold in shorter one-on-one actions, they're very fast, and they're heavily armed. You could play to those strengths by sending them in for hit-and-run operations to disrupt Dominion C3I and disperse their fleet in trying to cover those instillations.

It is no excuse to exclude them, unless there is a strategic reason, such as them being more efficient on other frontlines, where there are less available ships and where their superior power will make more of a difference.

Their firepower would be most needed at the decisive point. The war was never going to be decided on those other fronts - it would be decided on Cardassia.

Ok, this point crosses over to the reasons "why" the Sovies weren't there.
If you have no Sovies available, the logical choice for a Battleship will of course be a refit GCS, that's a given.
But that's not evidence of the Defiant being stronger then a Sovie.

I'm not suggesting it's stronger - I'm saying it's relatively stronger.

Again, we have no evidence, whatsoever, that at the Sovereign's size, it's easy to just add a shitload more guns and more power sources without a complete overhaul of the ship.

I'm not talking about refitting the Sov - I'm talking about building a dedicated warship of that size.

It can probably be done, but not easily, and perhaps not now, not without a profound redesign of the vessel.

That "profound redesign" is what I'm advocating.

Again, no evidence that it does, indeed, lack armor as you say

Other than all those windows...

Really?
How about the GCS?
It had a hell of a lot more windows then the Sov, and the systems seemed very fragile indeed.

The Batch I GCS was a poster child for everything wrong with the TNG-era Starfleet. When I said capital ship, I meant historical ones, from the World Wars.

Well, the GCS needs to be brought in this conversation, because here is a ship that is bigger then the Sovie, but that seems to output less power and possesses less powerful weapons.

Yes. An oil tanker is bigger, and yet far weaker, than a destroyer. You're comparing the worst design in Star Trek to one of the better ones.

Yet the Scimitar was capable of firing while cloaked when Donatra's new ships weren't, and it had more powerful shields then Donatra's birds who where incapacitated with very little shots.

So? The F-15 is slower and much less stealthy than the F-22. Does this mean that the US can't produce aircraft as fast and stealthy as the F-22? Of course not.

Personnal cloaking devices?

The JH shrouds.

First, the Federation has signed a treaty stopping them from researching and developing cloaking devices.

So?

Second, they had the "Stealth-suits" allowing them to walk undetected when they wanted to study Pre-Warp cultures.
If they can build suits that bend light (essentially "cloaking" the wearer), then if they were allowed to research cloaking technology, I'm sure they would be able to field personnal cloaks.

That entire system was dependant on the main Fed facility - when Data disabled that, he also disabled all the suits.

As for their Battleships, we don't know how much more advanced they were compared to the basic Dominion ship, therefore we don't know if those ships weren't simply a bigger Battlecruiser, with more of the "standard" armaments of the other Dominion ships.
Basically, it could be their version of a bigger GCS with many Type-X Phasers, but no Type-XII.
Instead of having 12 strips, it could have had 24 strips.

I'm not sure how this is relevant - whether it's got the same number of guns, but more powerful models, or the same model of guns but a lot more of them, it's still just as powerful.

Didn't it bring the station's shields down after other Dominion ships had fired at the station?

Indeed. The same is true of the Negh'var's attack.

[Mikey]

....and Seaford you can't prove that it can't.

Rochey covered this. A claim was made, and needs to be supported. It's irrational to ask someone to prove teh absence of that claim.

....or most likely the class was still in a testing. Remember the E-E had a full year shake down.

The class was out of testing, as shown by the E-E flying live missions.

Starship armor does not in its self equate to Naval armor. Starships have shields as well. With it's Shields and Armor the Sov is the most protected ship in the fleet.

That's by nature a statement on the relative strength of the Sov's protection, when in fact the criterion of classification is the absolute amount.

How do you figure, it was clear the Scimtar was more advanced then any other Romulan ship we have seen.

Then whose industrial base built it? The magic starship fairies?

What, what are you smoking? Just because a race have better transporters and personal cloaks does not mean there weapons are going to be more powerful?

That was very clearly a reference to the greater technical and industrial base of the Dominion. Don't deliberately misinterpret points.

while a out dated bird of pray was able to do it with only its weapons.

...while the GCS in question was effectively unshielded. Hardly an analagous situation.

[Deepcrush]

Just a point throw in but both times we've seen a GCS destroyed in battle the shields have been bypassed.

[m52nickerson]

*jumps into thread*

....and Seaford you can't prove that it can't.

Sorry, but you can't ask someone to prove a negative.

So you can not prove that a Sov's shields and armor would fail when hit by another Sov?

[Reliant121]

You made the point that a sov could withstand another sovs firepower. You must prove it. Not seafort. If you cant, then you default loose the point.

[Sionnach Glic]

Look up the burden of proof.

[m52nickerson]

You're making the claim, burden of proof is on you.

That is right, and there is no proof. That does not however prove your claim that a Sov could not stand up against its own weapons.

Which was over by the time the war began.

Really?

And you ignored the rest of the post.

You mean the part were after you said they would nto have made a difference, but throw them in anyways?

Exactly - you've got two Sovs you can assign to the attacking fleets.

One of which had right after its finished its shack down had to undergo massive repairs, and the other who knows?

Have you read any of my posts? If you can't build weapons big enough to take full advantage of the additional power, then simply use plenty of smaller weapons.

Yes you could.

Correct. Key phrase: as well. Shields + armour > Shields alone.

Yes, just as more armor and more shields are always better. That does not mean that the Sov can be considard a battleship because it does not have more of something.

Let's see, how do I figure that the fact that the Scimitar was built using the Romulan's industrial base means that it couldn't be "more advanced and powerful then anything the Rommies could field".

Sorry, your right it could not be more advanced then what they could field because the did field it. It was however more advanced than anything they had fielded before.

Those were simply examples. My point, as I stated, was that you can't divorce different aspects of the industrial base.

Again what are you talking about?

"Had to"? Prove it.

It is proved by the fact that they did it, unless you want to claim the Jem'Hadar just did not feel like taking it out with their weapons and ramed it for the hell of it.

Besides weren't you arguing in another thread that the Domionion was not as advanced as the federation, and their ships were not as strong?

[m52nickerson]

You made the point that a sov could withstand another sovs firepower. You must prove it. Not seafort. If you cant, then you default loose the point.

It can't be proven directly, since we don't see two Sov battling. That does not mean that Seaford can say the the Sov can't stand up to its own fire power and as such could not be considard a battleship. What we do see is the Sov standing up to firepower from a bigger and more powerful ship, that have many more weapons for quit some time. That evidance shows that yes a Sov could stand up against another Sov.

[Sionnach Glic]

That is right, and there is no proof. That does not however prove your claim that a Sov could not stand up against its own weapons.

No proof, no claim.