Cardassian Ship Technology

[Sionnach Glic]

Agreed. Building a bigger ship isn't a simple matter of scaling the designs up.

[Tsukiyumi]

Agreed. Building a bigger ship isn't a simple matter of scaling the designs up.

Somebody forgot to tell the Klingons...

[KuvahMagh]

Its possible they only kept the outward appearance and redid the interior...

[Sionnach Glic]

That's the most logical explaination.

[Deepcrush]

I think that a battleship would be neat to see from the CU, but its not a very likely thing to happen. Their shipyards are based on producing Galors and Keldons. These ships are by DS9 standards nothing more then light cruisers. Even if they upgraded them a little more or built them a little larger... Galors are around 300, Keldons 500 in DITL's combat rating. The best the CU could hope for its to turn out a fleet of medium cruisers in the 600 to 800 combat rating range.

[Deepcrush]

If they had the means, coudl they develope a ship as powerful as the Galaxy-class, Vorcha-class, D'drieniex-class?

I'm not too sure what you're asking here. You ask could they build such a ship "if they had the means". However, if we assume they have the means then obviously they could build such a vessel.
I think you mean "do they have the means?" In which case, I'd say yes. The choose not to due to their style of combat revolving more around large numbers of small, cheap, mass producable vessels that can outnumber their oponents.

? If so, what would it look like

Presumably a scaled-up version of a Galor, I'd assume.

and how many could be produced?

This is going to be difficult to figure out, though not impossible.

First, let's assume the Cardies are going to cut the numbers of Galors and Keldons in production by half, and use those resources to build thier new battleship.

Now, the DS9 TM (non canon, I know, but let's roll with it) says the Cardies produce "63 Galor class battlecruisers [and] 15 Galor class warships" per year.
Presumably, the battlecruiser is the standard Galor listed on DITL and the warship variant is the Keldon, which GK points out is just a modified Galor.

Okay, so we have numbers. Now we need to find out how much tonnage that is.
Going from DITL's estimates, Galors mass 1,687,000 metric tons while Keldons mass 2,230,000 tons.
1,687,000 X 63 = 106,281,000 tons
2,230,000 X 15 = 33,450,000 tons
Total tonnage per year = 139,731,000

Now, if we assume that the Cardies use half that tonnage to create their new battleships, that gives us 69,865,500 metric tons. Now let's assume the Cardies' new battleship is going to have roughly the same mass as the GCS.

GCS mass = 4,960,000

69,865,500 / 4,960,000 = 14 (rounding the ridiculously small decimals down).

Therefore, by sacraficing half of their Keldon and Galor production, the Cardies could build 14 battleships annualy.

Cardie ships are usualy built for long life, so let's assume that the ship's expected hull life is 30 years (lower than DITL's estimate for either the Keldon or the Galor to reflect the difficulty in maintaining such a ship).
30 X 14 = 420

Ergo, by sacraficing half their production capacity of Galors and Keldons, the Cardies could maintain a fleet of 420 battleships.

And how useful would these GCS= ships be against the UFP's numbers of Akira's, Uprated Nebs, Uprated GCS, Sovs and Prommies? If your figure of 14 ships per year is right then the CU would be fielding about 1 ship for every 8 UFP ships. That would just lead them to being ever more out numbered then they are now.

[Teaos]

There are powers out there who arent the Federation. These battleships could come in very handy against the RSE and Klingons.

[Sionnach Glic]

And how useful would these GCS= ships be against the UFP's numbers of Akira's, Uprated Nebs, Uprated GCS, Sovs and Prommies? If your figure of 14 ships per year is right then the CU would be fielding about 1 ship for every 8 UFP ships. That would just lead them to being ever more out numbered then they are now.

Where did I say that doing so would swing the ballance of power, or even be a good idea?
Someone asked how many GCS equivelants they could make, and I had a go at figuring that out.

[Mikey]

The question shouldn't be whether they'd be a match for the higher-rated ships in the UFP; rather, it should be whether the GCS-equivalents would be better than what they currently had.

[Deepcrush]

And how useful would these GCS= ships be against the UFP's numbers of Akira's, Uprated Nebs, Uprated GCS, Sovs and Prommies? If your figure of 14 ships per year is right then the CU would be fielding about 1 ship for every 8 UFP ships. That would just lead them to being ever more out numbered then they are now.

Where did I say that doing so would swing the ballance of power, or even be a good idea?
Someone asked how many GCS equivelants they could make, and I had a go at figuring that out.

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

Silly Rochey.

[Deepcrush]

The question shouldn't be whether they'd be a match for the higher-rated ships in the UFP; rather, it should be whether the GCS-equivalents would be better than what they currently had.

In the post DW I would say no. I doubt the DW will be in any shape to produce such an expensive class.

In the pre DW I would say yes. Given a number of years to build them, they could have come in handy when the KDF attacked. Those Vor'cha class Heavy Cruisers wouldn't have had such a great advantage over the Galors and Keldons.

[Mikey]

Agreed. All I'm saying is that even if they didn't match up to the mainstays of the Klingons or UFP, anything better than the Galor would have been worth fielding.

[Captain Picard's Hair]

Wouldn't it be interesting to see what a Cardassian shipbuilding ethos would do with Federation tech/resources?

[Captain Seafort]

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.

[Mikey]

Wouldn't it be interesting to see what a Cardassian shipbuilding ethos would do with Federation tech/resources?

It would kick a**, that's what. Cardie designs seem to be inherently hardy, no-nonsense, and easily maintainable - add to that the tech advantage and ability to build more powerful/larger vessels...