Trek Space Combat Ranges

[Mikey]

Yeah, er... spaceships are massive.

[SomosFuga]

Yeah, er... spaceships are massive.

Well i don't know that much about physics but those shields are able to stand against photon torpedoes and phasers, shouldn't be able to take an impact of pure kinetic energy; how much power has the output of a type X phaser or the yield of a photon torpedo and how much is the power of two ships colliding?

[Sionnach Glic]

how can ships ram each other if they're tens of thousands of KMs away?

how can they ram at all?
of course in some cases like Nemesis they were without shields and already prety damaged but in DS9 we saw dominion ships raming klingon ships at the very begining of the battle and go through shields like they weren't there.

Maybe the effect of two shields impacting each other cancels out their effects, allowing the ship to pass unimpeeded?

In any case, it's irrelevant. Ships can ram other ships. It's happened. Thus it's canon fact that ships can and do ram each other in fleet actions. If both fleets were shooting at each other from thousands of kilometres away, such an action would be virtualy impossible to pull off.

[Tyyr]

Well i don't know that much about physics but those shields are able to stand against photon torpedoes and phasers, shouldn't be able to take an impact of pure kinetic energy; how much power has the output of a type X phaser or the yield of a photon torpedo and how much is the power of two ships colliding?

A couple thousand tons of ship moving at a few thousand meters per second? A whole hell of a lot.

[Lt. Staplic]

Yeah, er... spaceships are massive.

Well i don't know that much about physics but those shields are able to stand against photon torpedoes and phasers, shouldn't be able to take an impact of pure kinetic energy; how much power has the output of a type X phaser or the yield of a photon torpedo and how much is the power of two ships colliding?

besides that, we don't exactly understand how the shields work, kind of like trying to use a mirror, which could be great for shielding oneself against a laser, to stop a bullet, it may just be that the shields weren't designed towards impeding the progress of an enemy ship.

[stitch626]

Why do people always compare Trek battles to naval battles? They are completly different.

In this case, how fast can naval vessels go, about 50 knots...
In Trek, they have to be that close to acuratly hit (we've seen them miss at near ranges so its safe to assume that at greater ranges it should be worse) becasue they are moving much faster.

[Mark]

Why do people always compare Trek battles to naval battles? They are completly different.

In this case, how fast can naval vessels go, about 50 knots...
In Trek, they have to be that close to acuratly hit (we've seen them miss at near ranges so its safe to assume that at greater ranges it should be worse) becasue they are moving much faster.

Yeah, but if you have a weapons range of 100,000 km you don't REALLY need to be 10,000 m away. Weapons DO have guidence and tracking systems.

[Lazar]

Another question is why ships in Trek (and other franchises) always seem to be moving so slow relative to each other, when you think of the relativistic velocities that they're capable of.

[Mark]

Thats easy. They are really moving at full speed, but the cameraman is just that quick so it only LOOKS like they are moving that slow.

[Lt. Staplic]

Another question is why ships in Trek (and other franchises) always seem to be moving so slow relative to each other, when you think of the relativistic velocities that they're capable of.

well at impulse, the faster they go, the slower they'll be able to move and react. so traveling at a much higher impulse speed than your enemy would put you at a disadvantage, unable to take effective maneuvers against them, because by the time you begin to maneuver they can already match the pattern.

[Lazar]

well at impulse, the faster they go, the slower they'll be able to move and react. so traveling at a much higher impulse speed than your enemy would put you at a disadvantage, unable to take effective maneuvers against them, because by the time you begin to maneuver they can already match the pattern.

I think it's the result of sci fi writers wanting to think that a starship battle will look like an old fashioned naval battle. I mean, think of a typical Trek battle. The ships probably traveled at a significant fraction of the speed of light to get to the battle area, and now the two ships are facing each other, traveling in opposite directions. Even if they meticulously managed to match their relative velocities to within a few thousand kph, then they would still just flash by each other in an instant. But on screen, the ships will often appear nearly stopped relative to each other, and when they engage each other in close combat, they'll be moving at what looks to be just a few hundred kph. I think a more realistic space battle would take place at much greater distances and much greater speeds, and it would probably look much less dramatic and satisfying on screen.

[Reliant121]

Personally, I really couldn't care less how far away they all are. They are having a battle, thats all I need or want to know.

[Graham Kennedy]

The problem with that explaination is that it contradicts some things. For example, how can ships ram each other if they're tens of thousands of KMs away? They'd be targetted and destroyed long before they could impact as soon as they moved away from the main fleet, and the target ship has ample time to move out of the way.

Not much of an issue given how rarely they even try and ram one another. But I don't see why it's any harder to ram. They may be way further apart than we see but they're also way faster than we see, so travel and reaction times are just the same as before.

Also, didn't we at one point explicitly hear Sisko order his ships to hold fire until they reaced a few hundred metres or so range? Why would he do that if the enemy was shooting at him from tens of thousands of kilometres away?

In the die is cast he ordered them to hold fire until they were within 500 metres. Kira said that "we might get pretty singed at that range". If anything that indicates to me that they DON'T normally fight close in like that. The whole point of the scene is that that is unusually close.

[Captain Seafort]

Not much of an issue given how rarely they even try and ram one another. But I don't see why it's any harder to ram. They may be way further apart than we see but they're also way faster than we see, so travel and reaction times are just the same as before.

What exactly do you base this idea that all the visuals of TWoK+ combat are wrong on? This isn't the occasional one-off, which we'd be able to dismiss as special circumstances - combat ranges are consistently depicted as being a few kilometres, with the long-range stuff (such as in Call to Arms and The Wounded) being the exceptions.

In the die is cast he ordered them to hold fire until they were within 500 metres. Kira said that "we might get pretty singed at that range". If anything that indicates to me that they DON'T normally fight close in like that. The whole point of the scene is that that is unusually close.

500m would count as unusually close whether normal range is a few kilometres or thousands of kilometres.

[Sionnach Glic]

What exactly do you base this idea that all the visuals of TWoK+ combat are wrong on? This isn't the occasional one-off, which we'd be able to dismiss as special circumstances - combat ranges are consistently depicted as being a few kilometres, with the long-range stuff (such as in Call to Arms and The Wounded) being the exceptions.

That's actualy a very good point. Combat ranges have always been depicted as being within ten kilometres or so. This isn't even a case of dialogue contradicting it, as characters routinely call out ranges that match the close combat visuals.

So what's the dissmissal of close ranges based on? It's not dialogue, and it's certainly not visuals. So that just leaves us with it being dismissed due purely to personal prefference, with no basis on canon.

In the die is cast he ordered them to hold fire until they were within 500 metres. Kira said that "we might get pretty singed at that range". If anything that indicates to me that they DON'T normally fight close in like that. The whole point of the scene is that that is unusually close.

If normal combat ranges were 1000KM+ then you'd be more than "pretty singed". It would be monumentaly stupid to hold fire until you close to point blank range while the enemy has been firing at you far beyond that. It's dumb enough if we take ranges as being what we see in visuals. It gets even worse if we assume ranges in the thousands of KMs.