Info on the USS Kelvin

[Graham Kennedy]

Why would we think it's based on anything at all?

[SuperSaiyaMan12]

Why would we think it's based on anything at all?

Well it could be a pre-refit design of another class. The Akula-class kind of looks like a refit of the Kelvin.

[Lazar]

Not really. The Kelvin had a secondary hull on top and a single nacelle on the bottom; the Akula has a nacelle on top, and a nacelle with a weapons pod on the bottom. Really all they've got in common is the saucer.

[Graham Kennedy]

If I had to peg the Kelvin as anything I'd call it a development of the Saladin class. Not as in literally taking a Saladin and modifying it into a Kelvin, but in terms of taking the basic hull concept and modifying it.

The Kelvin is interesting; watch as the shuttles evacuate, I counted twenty of them - and that was just how many were on the screen at once, which may or may not be the full complement. That's a HUGE shuttle complement for a ship that size - ten times as many as the NX for instance. Makes me wonder what sort of missions the ship was designed for, that it would need that kind of capability.

[Nickswitz]

Maybe meant purely for evacution, of the ship I mean....

But seriously, maybe for evacuation procedures of planets?

[Bryan Moore]

Maybe meant purely for evacution, of the ship I mean....

But seriously, maybe for evacuation procedures of planets?

This could explain the 800 saved, but do we have a size of this beast? I honestly thought the large shuttle idea was intelligent, especially as we see the transporters are still a little touchy even 25 years later on Enterprise. And the layout of the bay would allow for a lot of shuttles in there, despite not a huge amount of room. It's actually a nice touch, more of an aircraft carrier internal hangar than a big open bay.

[Graham Kennedy]

Maybe meant purely for evacution, of the ship I mean....

But seriously, maybe for evacuation procedures of planets?

This could explain the 800 saved, but do we have a size of this beast?

I estimated it on page three of this thread

I honestly thought the large shuttle idea was intelligent, especially as we see the transporters are still a little touchy even 25 years later on Enterprise. And the layout of the bay would allow for a lot of shuttles in there, despite not a huge amount of room. It's actually a nice touch, more of an aircraft carrier internal hangar than a big open bay.

One of the intriguing changes to the ships in this movie is the treatment of shuttles. Previously it's always been a big open bay with one or two shuttles visible... ships are generally described as having a handful of the things.

Now, they basically rack em and pack em as tight as they can. My estimate is that the Kelvin could hold at least 20 - 25 shuttles, even with a fairly low end size figure.

[SuperSaiyaMan12]

Considering the size of the nEnterprise, the first estimate you made seems to be accurate.

[Sionnach Glic]

The large amount of shuttles makes sense purely as an evacuation method.

[Aaron]

The large amount of shuttles makes sense purely as an evacuation method.

There's that. SF is supposed to be big on humanitarian aid in this universe, there a good way to run supplies around. The Kelvin is also supposed to be a survey ship, I can definitely see a role for a large amount of shuttles in that. The more I think about it, the more having 20-30 shuttles makes sense.

[Sionnach Glic]

Aye, there's a good few reasons for it.

[Graham Kennedy]

I've been thinking a little about the Kelvin.

First... the pop out turrets are not dissimilar to the the phase cannon turrets on Enterprise. Yet I believe he calls them phasers. So the progression went :

Pop out phase cannon --> pop out phaser cannon --> Fixed phaser cannon --> Phaser arrays

Second, there is definitely something that looks like a CIWS equivalent. Turrets that fire little white bolts on rapid fire. I'm assuming these are plasma cannon. Any other opinions?

Third, she didn't fire photons at all and I don't see a torpedo launcher on her Kelvin anywhere. My conclusion is that she's not equipped with them.

Speedwise, I fancy Warp 6 standard cruise, Warp 8 emergency; the movie website has warp 8 as her top speed.

[Tyyr]

I don't see them holding back during that engagement so I'd be surprised if they did have torpedoes. The pop up CIWS style turrets are probably my favorite little detail about the Kelvin. It just seem like such a logical addition to try and avoid taking torpedoes to the face.

I'd agree with warp 8 being an emergency speed. It looks to me like Starfleet was trying out a lot of alternate configurations early on, making the Enterprise plan form be the most efficient in terms of speed.

[Graham Kennedy]

Since we see many hull configurations in use in all timeframes, I tend towards the belief that it's not so much a case of experimenting with different shapes to find the best as that different configurations are better in different ways. We can only speculate about what those ways might be, but as an example of the kind of thing I mean maybe the Kelvin layout is good for nice efficient cruising long term, while the Miranda layout is good for acceleration, the Intrepid layout is good for high top speed, another layout might be good for agility, etc. Maybe the Enterprise layout is then the best all-round compromise between all the different factors.

You'll never find canon to support that idea though; let's face it, they give us lots of different designs so we can tell the ships apart easily and so it looks cool.

[Mark]

I guess "lasers" have been officially removed from the franchise now.............they WOULD have been in use on the Kelvin, but they weren't.